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SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 

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?IbeXahc Cnglleb Classic© 

EDITED BY 

LINDSAY TODD DAMON, A.B. 

Prof«e807 of English Literature and Rhetoric tn 
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MACAULAY'S ESSAYS 

ON 

OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

FREDERIC THE GREAT AND 

MADAME D'ARBLAY 



EDITED FOR SCHOOL USE 
BY 

ALPHONSO G. NEWCOMER 

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN THE LELAND STANFORD 
JUNIOR UNIVERSITY 



SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 
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./1||N4- 



Copyright 1913 

BY 

SCOTT, FOKESAIAN AND COMPANY 



(g)CI.A347239 



PREFACE 

''Twenty years ago," writes 0. W. Firkins in The 
Forum of November, 1912, "one would have said that 
the style of Macaulay, except as a qualifying force, 
had disappeared from English literature — that it 
belonged with the sackbut and the virginals, with the 
baldric and the coat-of-mail, among the curiosities 
of history. But the fact of death is not always estab- 
lished, in literature at least, by the fact of inquest, 
and one of the youngest of our later writers has taken 
the relic from its cabinet, reset and refurbished it, 
and found its merits preferable to the praise of origi- 
nality. The old marks of Llacaulay, the short, forcible 
sentence with the velocity and the impact of a missile, 
the clash of a word upon its repeated self like jingling 
castanets, the old readiness, if not quite the old rich- 
ness and remoteness, of allusion, the controversial 
zest, the glow of conflict, the impatience of half-truths 
and half-certainties, the insistence that all assertions 
shall be sweeping and all demonstrations final, the old 
and more than the old fertility of comparison and 
the relish for the homely simile that rivets and clamps 
the idea, the fearless use of balance, the terse, casual 
sarcasm which, like the scythe on the chariot, does 
execution as an incident of transit — all these traits, 
for the most part unabated and unabashed, reappear 
today in the style of" 

No matter whom, since this is not the place to make 
an excursion into contemporary criticism. The inter- 

5 



6 PREFACE. 

esting thing is the assurance that Macaulay has not 
yet ceased to be a very vital force in our literature. 
Nor is the fact any occasion for surprise. The style 
that he cultivated proved to be such a perfect instru- 
ment for the ready conveyance of thought that it has 
naturally been imitated by those writers with whom 
immediateness is of more importance than any other 
consideration. And in an age of unexampled industry 
in journalism, most of our writers are of this class. 
There should be no hesitation, therefore, in setting 
Macaulay before students as a model ; nor, in doing so, 
is there any occasion to apologize for putting consid- 
erations of style in the foreground. The sole point 
of importance is to remember that style is only a 
medium. Style itself will not avail much for the 
man who has little to say, least of all the style of 
Macaulay, the particular merit of which is its power 
to communicate and enforce the thing that is said. 
But when there is behind it an abundance of sub- 
stance, it becomes a thing of very great value. Much 
emphasis has therefore been laid upon it in the Intro- 
duction to the present volume. 

Another matter in connection with this particular 
study suggests a counsel of vigilance to the teacher, 
namely, the practice of requiring students to trace 
allusions and quotations. The practice has been much 
abused, and a warning seems especially necessary in 
dealing with a writer like Macaulay, who crowds his 
pages with instances and illustrations. It is profitable 
to follow him in the process of bringing together a 
dozen things to enforce his point, but it is not profit- 
able to reverse the process and allow ourselves to be 



PREFACE. 7 

led away from the subject in hand into a multitude of 
unrelated matters. Such a practice is perilous to the 
intellect, dissipating attention instead of concentrating 
it. Only when one fails to catch the full significance 
of an allusion, should he look it up. Then he should 
see to it that he brings back from his research just 
what occasioned the allusion, just what bears on the 
immediate passage. Other facts may be picked up 
by the way, to come useful in good time, but for the 
purpose of his present study he should insist on the 
vital relation of every fact he acquires. 

Illustrations of what is here meant may be found 
on almost any page. For instance, when Macaulay 
tells us that '*a war began in which Frederic stooped 
to the part of Harpagon and Voltaire to that of 
Scapin, ^ ' full comprehension of the passage is scarcely 
possible unless we find out something more about 
the parts of Harpagon and Scapin. But when, shortly 
afterward, we are told that ''D'Arnaud and D'Ar- 
gens, Guichard and La Metric, might, for the sake of 
a morsel of bread, be willing to bear the insolence of 
a master, but Voltaire was of another order, ' ' there is 
no real necessity to seek for further light. The whole 
tenor of the passage makes it plain that D'Arnaud 
and his tribe were unimportant parasitic authors, and 
consultation of a biographical dictionary would only 
confirm what we already know; additional facts 
about their lives would be impertinent. Indeed, the 
best use to be made of such allusions is not to require 
the student to look them up, but to see how much he 
can gather from them without looking them up. It 
is, in other words, just the sort of passage to stimulate 



8 PREFACE. 

the powers of deductive reasoning rather than the 
powers of memory. 

In the Glossary provided with the present text will 
be found nearly all the proper names and a few of 
the unusual words that occur in the essays. Excep- 
tions have been made in cases of names universally 
known, like Shakespeare and Waterloo; in the case of 
most of the scenes of Frederic's battles, which should 
be sought in a map, if anywhere; and in the case of 
a few references that are either quite trivial or suffi- 
ciently self-explanatory. In conformity with the 
specific purpose of the Glossary, the names are accom- 
panied by only such explanations as have some con- 
ceivable bearing on the text. 

A. G. N. 
Stanford University, California, 
December, 1912. 



CONTENTS. 

Page 

Preface 5 

Introduction 11 

Chronology and Bibliography 37 

The Essays: 

Oliver Goldsmith 41 

Frederic the Great 61 

Madame D 'Arblay 161 

Notes • 233 

Glossary 245 



INTRODUCTION. 

When, in 1825, Francis Jeffrey, Editor of the 
Edinburgh Review, searching for ''some clever young 
1. Macauiay's Ad- ^^^ ^^^ ^ouM Write for US," laid 
burgh'"ReJrew.^'"" ^^^ hands upon Thomas Babington 
]\Iacaulay, he did not know that he 
was marking a red-letter day in the calendar of Eng- 
lish journalism. Through the two decades and more 
of its existence, the Review had gone on serving its 
patrons with the respectable dulness of Lord Brougham 
and the respectable vivacity of its editor, and the 
patrons had apparently dreamed of nothing better 
until the momentous August when the young Fellow 
of Trinity, not yet twenty-five, flashed upon its pages 
with his essay on Milton. And for the next two 
decades the essays that followed from the same pen 
became so far the mainstay of the magazine that book- 
sellers declared it **sold, or did not sell, according as 
there were, or were not, articles by Mr. Macaulay." 
Yet Jeffrey was not without some inkling of the sig- 
nificance of the event, for upon receipt of the first 
manuscript he wrote to its author the words so often 
quoted: "The more I think, the less I can conceive 
where you picked up that style." Thus early was the 
finger of criticism pointed toward the one thing that 
has always been most conspicuously associated with 
Macauiay's name. 

11 



12 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

English prose, at this date, was still clinging to the 
traditions of its measured eighteenth-century stateli- 

2. Effect on Prose. ^^^^' ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ nearly gone 
out of it, and the formalism, which 
sat so elegantly upon Addison and not uneasily upon 
Johnson had stiffened into pedantry, scarcely relieved 
by the awkward attempts of the younger journalists 
to give it spirit and freedom. It was this languishing 
prose which Macaulay, perhaps more than any other 
one writer, deserves the credit of rejuvenating with 
that wonderful something which Jeffrey was pleased 
to call ''style." Macaulay himself would certainly 
have deprecated the association of his fame with a 
mere synonym for rhetoric, and we should be wrong- 
ing him if we did not hasten to add that style, rightly 
understood, is a very large and significant thing, com- 
prehending, indeed, a man's whole intellectual and 
emotional attitude toward those phases of life with 
which he comes into contact. It is the man's manner 
of reacting upon the world, his manner of expressing 
himself to the world ; and the world has little beyond 
the manner of a man's expression by which to judge 
of the man himself. A good style, even in the nar- 
rower sense of a good command of language, of a 
masterly and individual manner of presenting 
thought, is no mean accomplishment, and if Macaulay 
had done nothing else than revivify English prose, 
which is, just possibly, his most enduring achievement, 
he would have little reason to complain. What he 
accomplished in this direction and how, it is our chief 
purpose here to explain. In the meantime we shall do 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

well to glance at his other achievements and take some 
note of his equipment. 

Praed has left this description of him: ''There 
came up a short, manly figure, marvelously upright, 
3. The Man. ^^^^^ ^ ^^^ neckcloth, and one hand 
in his waistcoat-pocket." We read 
here, easily enough, brusqueness, precision without 
fastidiousness, and self-confidence. These are all 
prominent traits of the man, and they all show in his 
work. Add kindness and moral rectitude, which 
scarcely show there, and humor, which shows only in 
a somewhat unpleasant light, and you have a fair por- 
trait. Now these are manifestly the attributes of a 
man who knows what worldly comfort and physical 
well-being are, a man of good digestive and assimi- 
lative powers, well-fed, incapable of worry, born to 
succeed. 

In truth, IMacaulay was a man of remarkable vital- 
ity and energy, and though he died too early — at the 
beginning of his sixtieth year — he began his work 
young and continued it with almost unabated vigor to 
the end. But his ''work" (as we are in the habit of 
naming that which a man leaves behind him), volumi- 
nous as it is, represents only one side of his activity. 
There was the early assumed burden of repairing his 
father's broken fortunes, and providing for the family 
of younger brothers and sisters. The burden, it is 
true, was assumed with characteristic cheerfulness — 
it could not destroy for him the worldly comfort we 
have spoken of — but it entailed heavy responsibilities 
for a young man. It forced him to seek salaried posi- 



14 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

tions, sueh as the post of commissioner of bankruptcy, 
when he might have been more congenially employed. 
Then there were the many years spent in the service 
of the government as a Whig member of the House of 
Commons and as Cabinet ]\Iinister during the exciting 
period of the Reform Bill and the Anti-Corn-Law 
League, with all that such service involved — study of 
politics, canvassing, countless dinners, public and pri- 
vate, speechmaking in Parliament and out, reading 
and making reports, endless committee meetings, end- 
less sessions. There were the three years and a half 
spent in India, drafting a penal code. And there was, 
first and last, the acquisition of the knowledge that 
made possible this varied activity, — the years at the 
University, the study of law and jurisprudence, the 
reading, not of books, but of entire national litera- 
tures, the ransacking of libraries and the laborious 
deciphering of hundreds of manuscripts in the course 
of historical research. Perhaps this is falling into 
Macaulay's trick of exaggeration, but it is not easy to 
exaggerate the mental feats of a man who could carry 
in his memory works like Paradise Lost and Pilgrim's 
Progress and who was able to put it on record that in 
thirteen months he had read thirty classical authors, 
most of them entire and many of them twice, and 
among them such voluminous writers as Euripides, 
Herodotus, Plato, Plutarch, Livy, and Cicero. Nor 
was the classical literature a special field with him; 
Italian, Spanish, French, and the wildernesses of the 
English drama and the English novel (not excluding 
the "trashy*') were all explored. We may well be 
astounded that the man who could do all these things 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

in a lifetime of moderate compass, and who was be- 
sides such a tireless pedestrian that he was *' forever 
on his feet indoors as well as out/' could find time to 
produce so much literature of his own. 

That literature divides itself into at least five divi- 
sions. There are, first, the Essays, which he produced 

4. His Work. ^* intervals all through life. There 
are the Speeches which were de- 
livered on the floor of Parliament between his first 
election in 1830 and his last in 1852, and which rank 
very high in that grade of oratory which is just below 
the highest. There is the Indian Penal Code, not 
altogether his own work and not literature of course, 
yet praised by Justice Stephen as one of the most 
remarkable and satisfactory instruments of its kind 
ever drafted. There are the Poems, published in 1842, 
adding little to his fame and not a great deal to Eng- 
lish literature, yet very respectable achievements in 
the field of the modern romantic ballad. Finally, 
there is the unfinished History of England from the 
Accession of James the Second, his last, his most 
ambitious, and probably, all things considered, his 
most successful work. 

The History and Essays comprise virtually all of 
this product that the present generation cares to read. 

5 History of Upon the History, indeed, Macaulay 
England. staked his claim to future remem- 

brance, regarding it as the great work of his life. He 
was exceptionally well equipped for the undertaking. 
He had such a grasp of universal history as few men 
have been able to secure, and a detailed knowledge 
of the period of English history under contemplation 



16 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

equalled by none. But he delayed the undertaking 
too long, and he allowed his time and energy to be 
dissipated in obedience to party calls. Death over- 
took him in the midst of his labors. Even thus, it is 
clear that he underestimated the magnitude of the 
task he had set himself. For he proposed to cover a 
period of nearly a century and a half; the four 
volumes and a fraction which he completed actu- 
ally cover about fifteen years. His plan involved too 
much detail. It has been called pictorial history 
writing, and such it was. History he wished to make 
as vital and as human as romance. It was to be in 
every sense a restoration of the life of the past. 
Macaulay surely succeeded in this aim, as his fasci- 
nating third chapter will always testify; whether the 
aim were a laudable one, we cannot stop here to discuss. 
Historians will continue to point out the defects of the 
work, its diffuseness, its unphilosophical character, 
perhaps its partisan spirit. But it remains a mag- 
nificent fragment, and it will be read by thousands 
who could never be persuaded to look into dryer 
though possibly sounder works. Indeed, there is no 
higher tribute to its greatness than the objection that 
has sometimes been brought against it — namely, that 
it treats a comparatively unimportant era of Eng- 
land's history with such fulness and brilliance, and 
has attracted to it so many readers, that the other eras 
are thrown sadly out of perspective. 

But Macaulay 's name is popularly associated with 
that body of essays which in bulk alone (always ex- 
cepting Sainte-Beuve's) are scarcely exceeded by the 
product of any other essay-writer in an essay-writing 



INTRODUCTION. 17 

age. And the popular judgment which has insisted 
upon holding to this supposedly ephemeral work is 
6. Essays. ^^* ^^^ wrong. With all their faults 

upon them, until we have something 
better in kind to replace them, we cannot consent to 
let them go. In one sense, their range is not wide, 
for they fall naturally into but two divisions, the 
historical and the critical. To these Mr. Morison* 
would add a third, the controversial, comprising the 
four essays on Mill, Sadler, Southey, and Gladstone; 
but these are comparatively unimportant. In another 
sense, however, their range is very wide. For each 
one gathers about a central subject a mass of details 
that in the hands of any other writer would be 
bewildering, while the total knowledge that supports 
the bare array of facts and perpetual press of allu- 
sions betrays a scope that, to the ordinary mind, is 
quite beyond comprehension. 

And the more remarkable must this work appear 
when we consider the manner of its production. Most 
of the essays were published anonymously in the 
Edinhiirgh Revieiv, a few early ones in Knight's 
Quarterly Magazine, five (those on Atterbury, Bun- 
yan, Goldsmith, Johnson, and Pitt), written late in 
life, in the Encyclopcedia Britannica. The writing of 
them was always an avocation with IMacaulay, never 
a vocation. Those produced during his parliamentary 
life were usually written in the hours between early 
rising and breakfast. Some were composed at a dis- 
tance from his books. He scarcely dreamed of their 
living beyond the quarter of their publication, cer- 

* J. Cotter Morison : Macaulay. 



18 MACAULAY 'S ESSAYS. 

tainly not beyond the generation for whose entertain- 
ment they were written with all the devices to catch 
applause and all the disregard of permanent merit 
which writing for such a purpose invites. He could 
scarcely be induced, even after they were pirated and 
republished in America, to reissue them in a collected 
edition, with his revision and under his name. These 
facts should be remembered in mitigation of the severe 
criticism to which they are sometimes subjected. 

Between the historical and the critical essays we 
are not called upon to decide, though the decision is 
by no means difficult. Macaulay was essentially a 
historian, a story-teller; and the historical essay, or 
short monograph on the events of a single period, 
such as often group themselves about some great 
statesman or soldier, he made peculiarly his own. 
He did not invent it, as Mr. Morison points out, but 
he expanded and improved it until he *'left it com- 
plete and a thing of power." Fully a score of his 
essays — more than half the total number — are of this 
description, the ^most and the best of them dealing 
with English history. Chief among them are the 
essays on Hallam, Temple, the Pitts, Clive, and 
Warren Hastings. The critical essays — ^upon John- 
son, Addison, Bunyan, and other men of letters — are 
in every way as attractive reading as the historical. 
They must take a lower rank only because Macaulay 
lacked some of the primary requisites of a successful 
critic — broad and deep sympathies, refined tastes, and 
nice perception of the more delicate tints and shad- 
ings that count for almost everything in a work of 
high art. His critical judgments are likely to be 



INTEODUCTION. 19 

blunt, positive, and superficial. But they are never 
actually shallow and rarely without a modicum of 
truth. And they are never uninteresting. For, true 
to his narrative instinct, he always interweaves 
biography. And besides, the essays have the same 
rhetorical qualities that mark with distinction all the 
prose he has written, that is to say, the same masterly 
method and the same compelling style. It is to this 
method and style that, after our rapid review of 
Macaulay's aims and accomplishments, we are now 
ready to turn. 

There were two faculties of Macaulay's mind that 
set his work far apart from other work in the same 

7. Organizing ^^^^ — ^^^ faculties of organization 
Faculty. ^j^j illustration. He saw things in 

their right relation and he knew how to make others 
see them thus. If he was describing, he never thrust 
minor details into the foreground. If he was nar- 
rating, he never ''got ahead of his story. ^ The 
importance of this is not sufficiently recognizee!. ]\Iany 
writers do not know what organization means. They 
do not know that in all great and successful literary 
work it is nine-tenths of the labor. Yet consider a 
moment. History is a very complex thing: divers 
events may be simultaneous in their occurrence; or 
one crisis may be slowly evolving from many causes 
in many places. It is no light task to tell these things 
one after another and yet leave a unified impression, 
to take up a dozen new threads in succession without 
tangling them and without losing the old ones, and 
to lay them all down at the right moment and without 
confusion. Such is the narrator's task, and it was at 



20 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

this task that Macaulay proved himself a past master. 
He could dispose of a number of trivial events in a 
single sentence. Thus, for example, runs his account 
of the dramatist Wycherley's naval career: *'He 
embarked, was present at a battle, and celebrated it, 
on his return, in a copy of verses too bad for the 
bellman.*' On the other hand, when it is a question 
of a great crisis, like the impeachment of Warren 
Hastings, he knew how to prepare for it with elaborate 
ceremony and to portray it in a scene of the highest 
dramatic power. 

This faculty of organization shows itself in what 
we technically name structure ; and logical and rhetor- 
ical structure may be studied at their very best in his 
work. His essays are perfect units, made up of many 
parts, systems within systems, that play together 
without clog or friction. You can take them apart 
like a watch and put them together again. But try 
to rearrange the parts and the mechanism is spoiled. 
Each essay has its subdivisions, which in turn are 
groups of paragraphs. And each paragraph is a unit. 
Take the first paragraph of the essay on Clive: the 
words little interest appear in the first sentence, and 
the word insipid in the last; clearly the paragraph 
deals with a single very definite topic. And so with 
all. Of course the unity manifests itself in a hundred 
ways, but it is rarely wanting. Most frequently it 
takes the form of an expansion of a topic given in 
the first sentence, or a preparation for a topic to be 
announced only in the last. These initial and final 
sentences — often in themselves both aphoristic and 
memorable — serve to mark with the utmost clearness 
the different stages in the progress of the essay. 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

Illustration is of more incidental service, but as 
used by ]\Iacaulay becomes highly organic. For his 

8. Illustrating illustrations are not far-fetched or 
Faculty. laboriously worked out. They seem 

to be of one piece with his story or argument. His 
mind was quick to detect resemblances and analogies. 
He was ready with a comparison for everything, 
sometimes with half a dozen. For example, Addison 's 
essays, he has occasion to say, were different every 
day of the week, and yet, to his mind, each day like 
something — like Horace, like Lucian, like the '^ Tales 
of Scheherezade.'' He draws long comparisons be- 
tween Walpole and Townshend, between Congreve and 
Wycherley, between Essex and Villiers, between the 
fall of the Carlovingians and the fall of the jMoguls. 
He follows up a general statement with swarms of 
instances. Have historians been given to exaggerat- 
ing the villainy of Machiavelli? Macaulay can name 
you half a dozen who did S(y Did the writers of 
Charles's faction delight in making their opponents 
appear contemptible ? ' ' They have told us that Pym 
broke down in a speech, that Ireton had his nose 
pulled by Hollis, that the Earl of Northumberland 
cudgelled Henry Marten, that St. John's manners 
were sullen, that Vane had. an ugly face, that Crom- 
well had a red nose." Do men fail when they quit 
their own province for another ? Newton failed thus ; 
Bentley failed; Inigo Jones failed; Wilkie failed. 
In the same way he was ready with quotations. He 
writes in one of his letters: ''It is a dangerous thing 
for a man with a very strong memory to read very 
much. I could give you three or four quotations this 



22 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

moment in support of that proposition; but I will 
bring the vicious propensity under subjection, if I 
can/' Thus we see his mind doing instantly and 
involuntarily what other minds do with infinite pains, 
bringing together all things that have a likeness or a 
common bearing. 

Both of these faculties, that of organization and that 

of illustration, are to be partially explained by his mar- 

^ . velous memory. As we have seen, 

9. Memory. *' ' 

he read everything, and he seems to 
have been incapable of forgetting anything. The 
immense advantage which this gave him over other 
men is obvious. He who carries his library in his 
mind wastes no time in turning up references; and 
surveying the whole field of his knowledge at once, 
with outlines and details all in immediate range, he 
should be able to see things in their natural per- 
spective. Of course it does not follow that a great 
memory will always enable a man to systematize and 
synthesize, but it should make it easier for its pos- 
sessor than for other men, while the power of ready 
illustration which it affords him is beyond question. 
It is precisely these talents that set Macaulay 
among the simplest and clearest of writers, and that 
10. crearness and ^ccount for much of his popularity. 
Simplicity. People found that in taking up one 
of his articles they simply read on and on, never 
puzzling over the meaning of a sentence, getting the 
exact force of every statement, and following the 
trend of thought with scarcely a mental effort. And 
his natural gift of making things plain he took pains 
to support by various devices. He constructed his 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

sentences after the simplest normal fashion, subject 
and verb and object, sometimes inverting for em- 
phasis, but rarely complicating, and always reducing 
expression to the barest terms. He could write, for 
example, *'One advantage the chaplain had,*' but it 
is impossible to conceive of his writing, ''Now amid 
all the discomforts and disadvantages with which the 
unfortunate chaplain was surrounded, there was one 
thing which served to offset them, and which, if he 
chose to take the opportunity of enjoying it, might 
well be regarded as a positive advantage.'* One will 
search his pages in vain for loose, trailing clauses and 
involved constructions. His vocabulary was of the 
same simple nature. He had a complete command of 
ordinary English and contented himself with that. 
He rarely ventured beyond the most abridged dic- 
tionary. An occasional technical term might be 
required, but he was shy of the unfamiliar. He would 
coin no words and he would use no archaisms. 
Foreign words, when fairly naturalized, he employed 
sparingly. ''We shall have no disputes about dic- 
tion,'' he wrote to Napier, Jeffrey's successor; "the 
English language is not so poor but that I may very 
well find in it the means of contenting both you and 
myself. ' ' 

Now, all of these things are wholly admirable, and 
if they constituted the sum total of Macaulay's 
method, as they certainly do con- 
stitute the chief features of it, we 
should give our word of praise and have done. But 
he did not stop here, and often unfortunately too 
often, these things are not thought of at all by those 



24 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

who profess to speak knowingly of his wonderful 
''style." For in addition to clearness he sought also 
force, an entirely legitimate object in itself and one 
in which he was merely giving way to his oratorical or 
journalistic instinct. Only, his fondness for effect 
led him too far and into various mannerisms, some of 
which it is quite impossible to approve. There is no 
question but that they are, as they were meant to be, 
powerfully effective, often rightly so, and they are 
exceedingly interesting to study, but for these very 
reasons the student needs to be warned against 
attaching to them an undue importance. 

Perhaps no one will quarrel with his liking for 
the specific and the concrete. This indeed is not man- 
nerism. It is the natural working 

12. Concreteness. « ., • ... • j i? ^i, 

01 the imaginative mmd, of the pic- 
turing faculty, and is of the utmost value in forceful, 
vivid writing. The "ruffs and peaked beards of 
Theobald's" make an excellent passing allusion to 
the social life of the time of Queen Elizabeth and 
James the First. The manoeuvers of an army become 
intensely interesting when we see it ' ' pouring through 
those wild passes which, worn by mountain torrents 
and dark with jungle, lead down from the table-land 
of Mysore to the plains of the Carnatic." A refer- 
ence to the reputed learning of the English ladies of 
the sixteenth century is most cunningly put in the 
picture of "those fair pupils of Ascham and Aylmer 
who compared, over their embroidery, the styles of 
Isocrates and Lysias, and who, while the horns were 
sounding, and the dogs in full cry, sat in the lonely 
oriel, with eyes riveted to that immortal page which 



INTRODUCTION. 25 

tells how meekly the first great martyr of intellectual 
liberty took the cup from his weeping gaoler." But 
when his eagerness for the concretely picturesque 
leads him to draw a wholly imaginary picture of how 
it may have come about that Addison had Steele 
arrested for debt, we are quite ready to protest. 

His tendency to exaggerate, moreover, and his love 

of paradox, belong in a very different category. Let 

the reader count the strong words, 

13. Exaggeration. . ,. . , 

superlatives, universal propositions, 
and the like, employed in a characteristic passage, 
and he will understand at once what is meant. In the 
essay on Frederic the Great we read, of Maria The- 
resa's accession: ''No sovereign has ever taken posses- 
sion of a throne by a clearer title. All the politics of 
the Austrian cabinet had, during twenty years, been 
directed to one single end — the settlement of the suc- 
cession. From every person whose rights could be con- 
sidered as injuriously affected, renunciations in the 
most solemn form had been obtained. ' ' And not con- 
tent with the ordinary resources of language, he has a 
trick of raising superlatives themselves, as it were, to 
the second or third power. ' ' There can be little doubt 
that this great empire was, even in its best days, far 
worse governed than the worst governed parts of 
Europe now are." "What the Italian is to the Eng- 
lishman, what the Hindoo is to the Italian, what the 
Bengalee is to other Hindoos, that was Nuncomar to 
other Bengalees." It is evident that this habit is a 
positive vice. He tried to excuse it on the ground that 
there is some inevitable loss in the communication of a 
fact from one mind to another, and that over-statement 



26 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

is necessary to correct the error. But the argument is 
fallacious. Macaulay did not have a monopoly of 
the imaginative faculty ; other men are as much given 
to exaggeration as he, and stories, as they pass from 
mouth to mouth, invariably ''grow." 

His constant resort to antithesis to point his state- 
ments is another vice. ' ' That government, ' ' he writes 
14. Antithesis and ^^ ^he English rule in India, ''op- 
Baiance. pressive as the most oppressive form 

of barbarian despotism, was strong with all the 
strength of civilization. ' ' Again : ' ' The Puritan had 
affected formality; the comic poet laughed at deco- 
rum. The Puritan had frowned at innocent diver- 
sions; the comic poet took under his patronage the 
most flagitious excesses. The Puritan had canted; 
the comic poet blasphemed." And so on, through a 
paragraph. Somewhat similar to this is his practice 
of presenting the contrary of a statement before pre- 
senting the statement itself, of telling us, for example, 
what might have been expected to happen before 
telling us what actually did happen. It is to be 
noticed that, accompanying this use of antithesis and 
giving it added artificial force, there is usually a bal- 
ance of form, that is, a more or less exact correspond- 
ence of sentence structure. Given one of Macaulay 's 
sentences presenting the first part of an antithesis, it 
is sometimes possible to foretell, word for word, what 
the next sentence will be. Such mechanical writing 
is certainly not to be commended as a model of style. 
Of course it is the abuse of these things and not the 
mere use of them that constitutes Macaulay 's vice. 



INTEODUCTION. 27 

There are still other formal devices which he uses 
so freely that we are justified in calling them manner- 
isms. One of the most conspicuous 
15. Minor Devices. . ^, , , . ^.u ^.^ i. 

IS the short sentence, the blunt, un- 
qualified statement of one thing at a time. No one 
who knows Macaulay would hesitate over the author- 
ship of the following: "The shore was rocky; the 
night was black ; the wind was furious ; the waves of 
the Bay of Biscay ran high.'' The only wonder is 
that he did not punctuate it with four periods. He 
would apparently much rather repeat his subject and 
make a new sentence than connect his verbs. Instead 
of writing, "He coaxed and wheedled," he is con- 
stantly tempted to write, "He coaxed, he wheedled," 
even though the practice involves prolonged reitera- 
tion of one form. This omission of connectives — 
"asyndeton" — may easily become a vice. The a7ids, 
thens, therefores, howevers, the reader must supply 
for himself. This demands alertness and helps to 
sustain interest ; and while it may occasion a momen- 
tary perplexity, it will rarely do so when the reader 
comes to know the style and to read it with the right 
swing. But it all goes to enforce what Mr. John 
Morley calls the "unlovely staccato" of Macaulay 's 
style. It strikes harsh on the ear and on the brain, 
and from a piquant stimulant becomes an intolerable 
weariness. Separate things get emphasis, but the nice 
gradations and relations are sacrificed. 

After all, though we stigmatize these things as 
"devices," intimating that they were mechanical and 
arbitrary, we must regard them as partly tempera- 
mental. Macaulay 's mind was not subtle in its work- 



28 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

ing and was not given to making nice distinctions. He 
cared chiefly for bold outlines and broad effects. 
Truth, to his mind, was sharply 
defined from falsehood, right from 
wrong, good from evil. Everything could be divided 
from everything else, labelled, and pigeon-holed. And 
he was very certain, in the fields which he chose to 
enter, that he knew where to draw the dividing line. 
Positiveness, self-confidence, are written all over his 
work. Set for a moment against his method the 
method of Matthew Arnold. This is how Arnold tries 
to point out a defect in modern English society: 
''And, owing to the same causes, does not a subtle 
criticism lead us to make, even on the good looks 
and politeness of our aristocratic class, and even of 
the most fascinating half of that class, the feminine 
half, the one qualifying remark, that in these charm- 
ing gifts there should perhaps be, for ideal perfec- 
tion, a shade more soulf" Note the careful approach, 
the constant, anxious qualification, working up to a 
climax in the almost painful hesitation of ''a shade — 
more — soul." Imagine, if you can, Macaulay, the 
rough rider, he of the ''stamping emphasis," winding 
into a truth like that. But indeed it is quite impos- 
sible to imagine Macaulay 's having any truth at all 
to enunciate about so ethereal an attribute as this 
same soul. 

We have come well into the region of Macaulay 's 
defects. Clearness, we have seen, he had in a remark- 
able degree. Force he also had in a remarkable degree, 
though he frequently abused the means of display- 



INTRODUCTTOX. 29 

ing it. But genuine beauty, it is scarcely too much 
to say, he had not at all. Of course, much depends 
17 Ornament upon our definitions. We do not 
Rhythm. mean to deny to his writings all 

elements of charm. The very ease of his mastery 
over so many resources of composition gives pleasure 
to the reader. His frequent picturesqueness we have 
granted. He can be genuinely figurative, though his 
figures often incline to showiness. And above all he 
has a certain sense for rhythm. He can write long, 
sweeping sentences — periods that rise and descend 
with feeling, and that come to a stately or graceful 
close/The sentence cited above about the learning of 
women in the sixteenth century may be taken as an 
example. Or read the sketch of the Catholic Church 
in the third paragraph of the essay on Von Ranke's 
History of the Popes, or the conclusion of the essay 
on Lord Holland, or better still the conclusion of the 
somewhat juvenile essay on Mitford's Greece, with its 
glowing tribute to Athens and its famous picture of 
the ''single naked fisherman washing his nets in the 
river of the ten thousand masts." But at best it is 
the rhythm of mere declamation, swinging and pomp- 
ous. There is no fine flowing movement, nothing like 
the entrancing glides of a waltz or the airy steps of 
a minuet, but only a steady march to the interminable 
and monotonous beat of the drum. For real music, 
sweetness, subtle and involved harmony, lingering 
cadences, we turn to any one of a score of prose 
writers — Sir Thomas Browne, Addison, Burke, Lamb, 
De Quincey, Hawthorne, Ruskin, Pater, Stevenson — 



30 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

before we turn to Macaulay. Nor is there any other 
mere grace of composition in which he can be said to 
excel. 

There is no blame in the matter. We are only 
trying to note dispassionately the defects as well as 

18. Tempera- ^^^^ excellences of a man who was 
mental Defects, j^ot a universal genius. It would 
be easy to point out much greater defects than any 
yet mentioned, defects that go deeper than style. 
One or two indeed we are obliged to mention. There 
is the strain of coarseness often to be noted in his 
writing, showing itself now in an abusive epithet, 
now in a vulgar catch-word, now in a sally of humor 
bordering on the ribald. It is never grossly offensive, 
but it is none the less wounding to delicate sensibility. 
Then there is the Philistine attitude, which Mr. 
Arnold spent so much of his life in combating, the 
attitude of the complacent, self-satisfied Englishman, 
who sees in the British constitution and the organiza- 
tion of the British empire the best of all possible 
governments, and in the material and commercial 
progress of the age the best of all possible civilizations. 
And there is the persistent refusal to treat questions 
of really great moral significance upon any kind of 
moral basis. The absolute right or wrong of an act 
Macaulay will avoid discussing if he possibly can, 
and take refuge in questions of policy, of sheer profit 
and loss. We need not blame him severely for even 
these serious shortcomings. On the first point we 
remember that he was deliberately playing to his 
audience, consciously writing down to the level of 
his public. On the second we realize that he was a 



INTRODUCTION. 31 

practical politician and that he never could have been 
such had he had the idealism of a Carlyle or a Ruskin. 
And on the third we remember that his own private 
life was one of affectionate sacrifice and his public life 
absolutely stainless. He could vote away his own 
income when moral conviction demanded it. Besides, 
even when he was only arguing, '^ policy" was always 
on the side of right. What blame is left? Only 
this — that he should have pandered to any public, 
compromising his future fame for an ephemeral ap- 
plause, and that he should have so far wronged the 
mass of his readers as to suppose that arguments 
based upon policy would be more acceptable to them 
than arguments based upon sound moral principles. 
That he was something of a Philistine and not wholly 
a ''child of light," may be placed to his discount but 
not to his discredit. The total indictment is small and 
is mentioned here only in the interests of impartial 
criticism. 

It remains only to sum up the literary significance 
of Macaulay's work. Nearly all of that work, we 
19 Literary niust remember, lies outside of the 
Significance. fleld of what we know as ''pure 
literature." Pure literature — poetry, drama, fic- 
tion — is a pure artistic or imaginative product 
with inspiration or entertainment as its chief aim. 
Though it may instruct incidentally, it does not 
merely inform. It is the work of creative genius. 
Macaulay's essays were meant to inform. Characters 
and situations are delineated in them, but not created. 
History and criticism are often not literature at all. 
They become literature only by revealing an imagi- 



32 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

native insight and clothing themselves in artistic 
form. Macaulay 's essays have done this ; they engage 
the emotions as well as the intellect. They were 
meant for records, for storehouses of information; 
but they are also works of art, and therefore they 
live intact while the records of equally industrious 
but less gifted historians are revised and replaced. 
Thus by their artistic quality, their style, they are 
removed from the shelves of history to the shelves of 
literature. 

It becomes plain, perhaps, why at the outset we 
spoke of style. One hears little about Shakespeare's 
style, or Scott's, or Shelley's. Where there are mat- 
ters of larger interest — character, dramatic situations, 
passion, lofty conceptions, abstract truth — there is 
little room for attention to so superficial a quality, 
or rather to a quality that has some such superficial 
aspects. But in the work of less creative writers, a 
purely literary interest, if it be aroused at all, must 
centre chiefly in this. And herein lies Macaulay 's 
significance to the literary world today. 

Upon the professional writers of that world, as 
distinct from the readers, his influence has been no 
20. Influence on ^^^s than profound, partly for evil. 
Journalism. \)^i chiefly, we think (Mr. Morley 
notwithstanding), for good. His name was mentioned 
at the beginning of our sketch in connection with 
journalism. It is just because the literary develop- 
ment of our age has moved so rapidly along this line, 
that Macaulay 's influence has been so far-reaching. 
The journalist must have an active pen. He cannot 
indulge in meditation while the ink dries. He cannot 



INTEODUCTION. 33 

stop to arrange and rearrange his ideas, to study the 
cadence of his sentences, to seek for the unique or 
the suggestive word. What Macaulay did was to fur- 
nish the model of just such a style as would meet this 
need — ready, easy, rapid, yet never loose or obscure. 
He seems to have found his way by instinct to all 
those expedients which make writing easy — short, 
direct sentences, commonplace words, constant repeti- 
tion and balance of form, adapted quotations, and 
stock phrases from the Bible or Prayer-Book, or from 
the language of the professions, politics, and trade. 
This style he impressed upon a generation of journal- 
ists that was ready to receive it and keenly alive to 
its value. 

But the word ''journalist" is scarcely broad enough 
to cover the class of writers here meant. For the class 
includes, in addition to the great "press tribe" from 
editor to reporter and reviewer, every writer of popu- 
lar literature, every one who appeals to a miscella- 
neous public, who undertakes to make himself a 
medium between special intelligence and general 
intelligence. And there are thousands of these writ- 
ers today — in editorial chairs, on magazine staffs, 
on political, educational, and scientific commissions — 
who are consciously or unconsciously employing the 
convenient instrument which Macaulay did so much 
toward perfecting eighty years ago. The evidence is 
on every hand. One listens to a lecture by a scientist 
who, it is quite possible, never read a paragraph of 
Macaulay, and catches, before long, words like these: 
** There is no reversal of nature's processes. The 
world has come from a condition of things essentially 



34 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

different from the present. It is moving toward a 
condition of things essentially different from the 
present." Or one turns to an editorial in a daily 
paper and reads: '^It will be ever thus with all the 
movements in this country to which a revolutionary 
interpretation can be attached. The mass and body of 
the people of the United States are a level-headed, 
sober-minded people. They are an upright and a 
solvent people. They love their government. They 
are proud of their government. Its credit is dear to 
them. Enlisted in its cause, party lines sag loose 
upon the voters or disappear altogether from their 
contemplation." The ear-marks are very plain to see. 

We would not make the mistake of attributing too 
many and too large effects to a single cause. Life and 
art are very complex matters and the agencies at 
work are quite beyond our calculation. There is 
always danger of exaggerating the importance of a 
single influence. The trend of things is not easily 
disturbed — the history of the world never yet turned 
upon the cast of a die or the length of a woman's nose. 
In spite of Jeffrey's testimony — and it can not be 
lightly brushed aside — ^we are not ready to give ]\Iac- 
aulay the whole credit for inventing this style. Nor 
do we believe that journalism would be materially dif- 
ferent from what it is today, even though Macaulay 
had never written a line. But it does not seem too 
much to admit that the first vigorous impulse came 
from him and that the manner is deservedly asso- 
ciated with his name. 

In itself, as has been pointed out, it is not a beauti- 
ful thing. It is a thing of mannerisms, and some of 



INTEODUCTION. 35 

these we have not hesitated to call vices. From the 
point of view of literature they are vices, blemishes 
on the face of true art. But the style is useful none 
the less. The ready writer is not concerned about 
beauty, he does not profess to be an artist. He has 
intelligence to convey, and the simplest and clearest 
medium is for his purpose the best. He will continue 
to use this serviceable medium nor trouble himself 
about its ''unlovely staccato" and its gaudy tinsel. 
Meanwhile the literary artist may pursue his way in 
search of a more elusive music and a more iridescent 
beauty, satisfied with the tithe of Macaulay's popu- 
larity if only he can attain to some measure of his 
own ideals. 

But Macaulay himself should be remembered for 
his real greatness. The facile imitator of the tricks 
21. Real Great- ^^ ^^^ P^^ should beware of the 
ness. ingratitude of assuming that these 

were the measure of his mind. These vices are virtues 
in their place, but they are not high virtues, and they 
are not the virtues that made Macaulay great. His 
greatness lay in the qualities that we have tried to 
insist upon from the first, qualities that are quite 
beyond imitation, the power of bringing instantly into 
one mental focus the accumulations of a prodigious 
memory, and the range of vision, the grasp of detail, 
and the insight into men, measures, and events, that 
enabled him to reduce to beautiful order the chaos of 
human history. 



CHRONOLOGY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1800. Macaulay born, Oct. 25, 'at Rothley Temple, 

Leicestershire. 
1818. Entered Trinity College, Cambridge. (B. A., 

1822; M.A., 1825.) 

1823. Began contributing to Knight ^s Quarterly 

Magazine. 

1824. Elected Fellow of Trinity. 

1825. Began contributing to Edinhurgh Review. 

1826. Called to the Bar. 

1830. Entered Parliament. 

1831. Speeches on Reform Bill. 

1834. Went to India as member of the Supreme 
Council. 

1837. Indian Penal Code. 

1838. Returned to England. Tour in Italy. 

1839. Elected to Parliament for Edinburgh. Secre- 

tary at War. 

1842. Lays of Ancient Rome. 

1843. Collected edition of Essays. 

1848. History of England, vols. i. and ii. (Vols. ill. 
and iv. 1855; vol. v. 1861.) 

1852. Failure in health. 

1857. Made Baron Macaulay of Rothley. 

1859. Died Dec. 28. (Interred in Westminster- 
Abbey.) 

37 



38 MAGAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

The standard edition of Macaulay's works is that 
edited by his sister, Lady Trevelyan, in eight volumes, 
and published at London, 1866; reprinted at New 
York, by Harper Bros. The authorized biography is 
that by his nephew, G. 0. Trevelyan, a book which is 
exceedingly interesting and which takes high rank 
among English biographies. J. Cotter Morison's life 
in the English Men of Letters series is briefer, is both 
biographical and critical, and is in every way an 
admirable work. There are also articles in the Ency- 
clopcpdia Britannicaf by Mark Pattison, and in the 
Dictionary of National Biographyj by Sir Leslie 
Stephen. The best critical essays are those by Sir 
Leslie Stephen in Hours in a Library, by John Morley 
in Miscellanies, and by Walter Bagehot in Literary 
Studies. 



MACAULAY'S ESSAYS 

OLIVER GOLDSMITH 
FREDERIC THE GREAT MADAM D'ARBLAY 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

(February 1856) 

Encyclopedia Britannica. 

Oliver Goldsmith was one of the most pleasing Eng- 
lish writers of the eighteenth century. He was of a 
Protestant and Saxon family which had been long set- 
tled in Ireland, and which had, like most other Protes- 

5tant and Saxon families, been, in troubled times, har- 
assed and put in fear by the native population. His 
father, Charles Goldsmith, studied in the reign of 
Queen Anne at the diocesan school of Elphin, became 
attached to the daughter of the schoolmaster, mar- 

10 ried her, took orders, and settled at a place called 
Pallas in the county of Longford. There he with dif- 
ficulty supported his wife and children on what he 
could earn, partly as a curate and partly as a 
farmer. 

15 At Pallas Oliver Goldsmith was born in November, 
1728. The spot was then, for all practical purposes, 
almost as remote from the busy and splendid capital 
in which his later years were passed, as any clearing 
in Upper Canada or any sheep-walk in Australasia 

20 now is. Even at this day those enthusiasts who ven- 
ture to make a pilgrimage to the birthplace of the poet 
are forced to perform the latter part of their journey 
on foot. The hamlet lies far from any high road, 

41 



42 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

on a dreary plain which, in wet weather, is often a 
lake. The lanes would break any jaunting car to 
pieces ; and there are ruts and sloughs through which 
the most strongly built wheels cannot be dragged. 

While Oliver was still a child, his father was pre- 5 
sented to a living worth about 200Z. a year, in the 
county of Westmeath. The family accordingly quit- 
ted their cottage in the wilderness for a spacious house 
on a frequented road, near the village of Lissoy. Here 
the boy was taught his letters by a maid-servant, and lo 
was sent in his seventh year to a village school kept 
by an old quartermaster on half-pay, who professed to 
teach nothing but reading, writing and arithmetic, but 
who had an inexhaustible fund of stories about ghosts, 
banshees and fairies, about the great Rapparee chiefs, 15 
Baldearg O'Donnell and galloping Hogan, and about 
the exploits ot Peterborough and Stanhope, the sur- 
prise of Monjuich, and the glorious disaster of Bri- 
huega. This man must have been of the Protestant 
religion ; but he was of the aboriginal race, and not 20 
only spoke the Irish language, but could pour forth 
unpremeditated Irish verses. Oliver early became, 
and through life continued to be, a passionate admirer 
of the Irish music, and especially of the comprositions 
of Carolan, some of the last notes of whose harp he 25 
heard. It ought to be added that Oliver, though by 
birth one of the Englishry, and though connected by 
numerous ties with the Established Church, never 
showed the least sign of that contemptuous antipathy 
with which, in his days, the ruling minority in Ireland 30 
too generally regarded the subject majority. So far 
indeed was he from sharing in the opinions and feel- 
ings of the caste to which he belonged, that he con- 
ceived an aversion to the Glorious and Immortal Mem- 
ory, and, even when George the Third was on the 35 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 43 

throne, maintained that nothing but the restoration of 
the banished dynasty could save the country. 

From the humble academy kept by the old soldier 
Goldsmith was removed in his ninth year. He went 

5 to several grammar-schools, and acquired some 
knowledge of the ancient languages. His life at this 
time seems to have been far from happy. He had, as 
appears from the admirable portrait of him at 
Knowle, features harsh even to ugliness. The small- 

10 pox had set its mark on him with more than usual 
severity. His stature was small, and his limbs ill put 
together. Among boys little tenderness is shown to 
personal defects; and the ridicule excited by poor 
Oliver's appearance was heightened by a peculiar sim- 

15 plicity and a disposition to blunder which he retained 
to the last. He became the common butt of boys and 
masters, was pointed at as a fright in the play-ground, 
and flogged as a dunce in the school-room. When he 
had risen to eminence, those who had once derided 

20 him ransacked their memory for the events of his early 
years, and recited repartees and couplets which had 
dropped from him, and which, though little noticed 
at the time, were supposed, a quarter of a century 
later, to indicate the powers which produced the 

25 "Vicar of Wakefield" and the ''Deserted Village." 

In his seventeenth year Oliver went up to Trinity 

College, Dublin, as a sizar. The sizars paid nothing 

for food and tuition, and very little for lodging ; but 

they had to perform some menial services from 

30 which they have long been relieved. They swept the 
court; they carried up the dinner to the fellows' 
table, and changed the plates and poured out the 
ale of the rulers of the society. Goldsmith was 
quartered, not alone, in a garret, on the window of 

35 which his name, scrawled by himself, is still read 



44 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

with interest. From such garrets many men of less 
parts than his have made their way to the wool-sack 
or to the episcopal bench. But Goldsmith, while he 
suffered all the humiliations, threw away all the ad- 
vantages, of his situation. He neglected the studies 5 
of the place, stood low at the examinations, was 
turned down to the bottom of his class for playing 
the buffoon in the lecture room, was severely repri- 
manded for pumping on a constable, and was caned 
by a brutal tutor for giving a ball in the attic story lo 
of the college to some gay youths and damsels from 
the city. 

While Oliver was leading at Dublin a life divided 
between squalid distress and squalid dissipation, his 
father died, leaving a mere pittance. The youth ob-i5 
tained his bachelor's degree, and left the university. 
During some time the humble dwelling to which his 
widowed mother had retired was his home. He was 
now in his twenty-first year ; it was necessary that he 
should do something ; and his education seemed to have 20 
fitted him to do nothing but to dress himself in gaudy 
colours, of which he was as fond as a magpie, to take a 
hand at cards, to sing Irish airs, to play the flute, to 
angle in summer, and to tell ghost stories by the fire in 
winter. He tried five or six professions in turn with- 25 
out success. He applied for ordination; but, as he 
applied in scarlet clothes, he was speedily turned out 
of the episcopal palace. He then became tutor in an 
opulent family, but soon quitted his situation in conse- 
quence of a dispute about play. Then he determined 30 
to emigrate to America. His relations, with much sat- 
isfaction, saw him set out for Cork on a good horse, 
with thirty pounds in his pocket. But in six weeks he 
came back on a miserable hack, without a penny, and 
informed his mother that the ship in which he had 35 



OLIVEE GOLDSMITH. 45 

taken his passage, having got a fair wind while he was 
at a party of pleasure, had sailed without him. Then 
he resolved to study the law. A generous kinsman 
advanced fifty pounds. With this sum Goldsmith went 

5 to Dublin, was enticed into a gaming house, and lost 
every shilling. He then thought of medicine. A 
small purse was made up; and in his twenty-fourth 
year he was sent to Edinburgh. At Edinburgh he 
passed eighteen months in nominal attendance on lec- 

lotures, and picked up some superficial information 
about chemistry and natural history. Thence he went 
to Leyden, still pretending to study physic. He left 
that celebrated, university, the third university at 
which he had resided, in his twenty-seventh year, with- 

15 out a degree, with the merest smattering of medical 
knowledge, and with no property but his clothes and 
his flute. His flute, however, proved a useful friend. 
He rambled on foot through Flanders, France, and 
Switzerland, playing tunes which everywhere set the 

20 peasantry dancing, and which often procured for him 
a supper and a bed. He wandered as far as Italy. 
His musical performances, indeed, were not to the taste 
of the Italians; but he contrived to live on the alms 
which he obtained at the gates of convents. It should, 

25 however, be observed that the stories which he told 
about this part of his life ought to be received with 
great caution ; for strict veracity was never one of his 
virtues; and a man who is ordinarily inaccurate in 
narration is likely to be more than ordinarily inac- 

30 curate when he talks about his own travels. Gold- 
smith, indeed, was so regardless of truth as to assert 
in print that he was present at a most interesting con- 
versation between Voltaire and Fontenelle, and that 
this conversation took place at Paris. Now it is cer- 

35 tain that Voltaire never was within a hundred leagues 



46 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

of Paris during the whole time which Goldsmith 
passed on the Continent. 

In 1756 the wanderer landed at Dover, without a 
shilling, without a friend, and without a calling. He 
had, indeed, if his own unsupported evidence may be 5 
trusted, obtained from the university of Padua a doc- 
tor 's degree ; but this dignity proved utterly useless to 
him. In England his flute was not in request: there 
were no convents ; and he was forced to have recourse 
to a series of desperate expedients. He turned strol- 10 
ling player ; but his face and figure were ill suited to 
the boards even of the humblest theater. He pounded 
drugs and ran about London with phials for charitable 
chemists. He joined a swarm of beggars, which made 
its nest in Axe Yard. He was for a time usher of a 15 
school, and felt the miseries and humiliations of this 
situation so keenly that he thought it a promotion to be 
permitted to earn his bread as a bookseller's hack; but 
he soon found the new yoke more galling than the old 
one, and was glad to become an usher again. He ob- 20 
tained a medical appointment in the service of the East 
India Company; but the appointment was speedily 
revoked. Why it was revoked we are not told. The 
subject was one on which he never liked to talk. It is 
probable that he was incompetent to perform the 25 
duties of the place. Then he presented himself at 
Surgeons' Hall for examination, as mate to a naval 
hospital. Even to so humble a post he was found 
unequal. By this time the schoolmaster whom he had 
served for a morsel of food and the third part of a 30 
bed was no more. Nothing remained but to return to 
the lowest drudgery of literature. Goldsmith took a 
garret in a miserable court, to which he had to climb 
from the brink of Fleet Ditch by a dizzy ladder of flag- 
stones called Breakneck Steps. The court and the 35 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 47 

ascent have long disappeared ; but old Londoners will 
remember both. Here, at thirty, the unlucky adven- 
turer sat down to toil like a galley slave. 

In the succeeding six years he sent to the press some 
5 things which have survived and many which have per- 
ished. He produced articles for reviews, magazines, 
and newspapers; children's books which, bound in gilt 
paper and adorned with hideous woodcuts, appeared in 
the window of the once far-famed shop at the corner 

10 of St. Paul's Churchyard; ''An Inquiry into the 
State of Polite Learning in Europe," which, though of 
little or no value, is still reprinted among his works ; a 
' ' Life of Beau Nash, ' ' which is not reprinted, though 
it well deserves to be so; a superficial and incorrect, 

15 but very readable, ''History of England," in a series 
of letters purporting to be addressed by a nobleman to 
his son ; and some very lively and amusing ' ' Sketches 
of London Society," in a series of letters purporting 
to be addressed by a Chinese traveller to his friends. 

20 All these works were anonymous; but some of them 
were well known to be Goldsmith 's ; and he gradually 
rose in the estimation of the booksellers for whom he 
drudged. He was, indeed, emphatically a popular 
writer. For accurate research or grave disquisition 

25 he was not well qualified by nature or by education. 
He knew nothing accurately: his reading had been 
desultory; nor had he meditated deeply on what he 
had read. He had seen much of the world; but he 
had noticed and retained little more of what he had 

30 seen than some grotesque incidents and characters 
which had happened to strike his fancy. But, though 
his mind was very scantily stored with materials, he 
used what materials he had in such a way as to pro- 
duce a wonderful effect. There have been many 

35 greater writers ; but perhaps no writer was ever more 



48 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

uniformly agreeable. His style was always pure and 
easy, and, on proper occasions, pointed and energetic. 
His narratives were always amusing, his descriptions 
always picturesque, his humour rich and joyous, yet 
not without an occasional tinge of amiable sadness. 5 
About everything that he wrote, serious or sportive, 
there was a certain natural grace and decorum, hardly 
to be expected from a man a great part of whose life 
had been passed among thieves and beggars, street- 
walkers and merry andrews, in those squalid dens lo 
which are the reproach of great capitals. 

As his name gradually became known, the circle of 
his acquaintance widened. He was introduced to John- 
son, who was then considered as the first of living Eng- 
lish writers ; to Reynolds, the first of English painters ; 15 
and to Burke, who had not yet entered parliament, 
but had distinguished himself greatly by his writings 
and by the eloquence of his conversation. With these 
eminent men Goldsmith became intimate. In 1763 he 
was one of the nine original members of that cele- 20 
brated fraternity which has sometimes been called the 
Literary Club, but which has always disclaimed that 
epithet, and still glories in the simple name of The 
Club. 

By this time Goldsmith had quitted his miserable 25 
dwelling at the top of Breakneck Steps, and had taken 
chambers in the more civilised region of the Inns 
of Court. But he was still often reduced to pitiable 
shifts. Towards the close of 1764 his rent was so 
long in arrear that his landlady one morning called 30 
in the help of a sheriff's officer. The debtor, in great 
perplexity, despatched a messenger to Johnson; and 
Johnson, always friendly, though often surly, sent 
back the messenger with a guinea, and promised to 
follow speedily. He came, and found that Goldsmith 35 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 49 

had changed the guinea, and was railing at the land- 
lady over a bottle of Madeira, Johnson put the cork 
into the bottle, and entreated his friend to consider 
calmly how money was to be procured. Goldsmith 

»said that he had a novel ready for the press. John- 
son glanced at the manuscript, saw that there were 
good things in it, took it to a bookseller, sold it for 
60/., and soon returned with the money. The rent 
was paid; and the sheriff's officer withdrew. Ac- 

I cording to one story. Goldsmith gave his landlady a 
sharp reprimand for her treatment of him ; according 
to another, he insisted on her joining him in a bowl of 
punch. Both stories are probably true. The novel 
which was thus ushered into the world was the " Vicar 

.of Wakefield." 

But, before the ' ' Vicar of Wakefield ' ' appeared in 
print, came the great crisis of Goldsmith's literary 
life. In Christmas week, 1764, he published a poem, 
entitled the ''Traveller." It was the first work to 

I which he had put his name ; and it at once raised him 
to the rank of a legitimate English classic. The 
opinion of the most skilful critics was, that nothing 
finer had appeared in verse since the fourth book of 
the " Dunciad." In one respect the '' Traveller" 

• differs from all Goldsmith's other writings. In gen- 
eral his designs were bad, and his execution good. In 
the " Traveller," the execution, though deserving of 
much praise, is far inferior to the design. No philo- 
sophical poem, ancient or modern, has a plan so noble, 

) and at the same time so simple. An English wanderer, 
seated on a crag among the Alps, near the point 
where three great countries meet, looks down on the 
boundless prospect, reviews his long pilgrimage, re- 
calls the varieties of scenery, of climate, of govern- 

5 ment, of religion, of national character, which he has 



50 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

observed, fuid comes to the conclusion, just or unjust, 
that our happiness depends little on political institu- 
tions, and much on the temper and regulation of our 
own minds. 

While the fourth edition of the ** Traveller " v^^as 5 
on the counters of the booksellers, the " Vicar of 
Wakefield '' appeared, and rapidly obtained a popu- 
larity which has lasted down to our own time, and 
which is likely to last as long as our language. The 
fable is indeed one of the worst that ever was con- lo 
structed. It wants, not merely that probability which 
ought to be found in a tale of common English life, 
but that consistency which ought to be found even in 
the wildest fiction about witches, giants, and fairies. 
But the earlier chapters have all the sweetness of 15 
pastoral poetry, together with all the vivacity of 
comedy. Moses and his spectacles, the vicar and his 
monogamy, the sharper and his cosmogony, the squire 
proving from Aristotle that relatives are related, 
Olivia preparing herself for the arduous task of con- 20 
verting a rakish lover by studying the controversy be- 
tween Robinson Crusoe and Friday, the great ladies 
with their scandal about Sir Tomkyn's amours and 
Dr. Burdock's verses, and Mr. Burchell with his 
' ' Fudge, ' ' have caused as much harmless mirth as has 25 
ever been caused by matter packed into so small a 
number of pages. The latter part of the tale is un- 
worthy of the beginning. As we approach the catas- 
trophe, the absurdities lie thicker and thicker; and 
the gleams of pleasantry become rarer and rarer. 30 

The success which had attended Goldsmith as a 
novelist emboldened him to try his fortune as a drama- 
tist. He wrote the " Goodnatured Man," a piece 
which had a worse fate than it deserved. Garrick 
refused to produce it at Drury Lane. It was acted at 35 



OLIVKH (lOl.DSMITir. 51 

Covent Oarflcn in 1768, ])ut was coldly nH'civcd. Tho 
author, however, cleared by liis })enefit riiji^hts, and 
by the sale of the copyright, no less than 500/., five 
times as much as he had made by the ** Traveller " 
and the ''Vicar of Wakefield" together. The plot 
of the ''Goodnatured Man" is, like almost all 
(loldsmith's plots, very ill constructed. But some 
passages are exquisitely ludicrous; much more ludi- 
crous, indeed, than suited the taste of the town at 
that time. A canting, mawkish play, entitled " False 
Delicacy," had just had an immense run. Senti- 
mentality was all the mode. During some years, more 
tears were shed at comedies than at tragedies; and a 
pleasantry which moved the ^ludience to anything 
more than a grave smile was reprobated as low. It is 
not strange, therefore, that the very best scene in the 
'' Ooodnatured Man," that in which Miss llichland 
finds her lover attended by the bailiff and the bniliff 's 
follower in full court dresses, should have been merci- 
lessly hissed, and should liave been omitted after the 
first night. 

In 1770 appeared the "Deserted Village." In 
mere diction and versification this celebrated i)0('m is 
Fully equal, perhaps superior, to the ''Traveller;" 
and it is generally preferred to the "Traveller " by 
that large class of readers who think, with Bayes in 
the " Rehearsal," that the only use of a plan is to 
bring in fine things. More discerning judgc^s, how- 
over, while they admire the beauty of the details, are 
shocked by one unpardonable; fault which pervades 
the whole. The; fault wc mean is not that theory about 
wealth and luxury which has so often been censiinid 
by political economists. The theory is indeed false; 
but the poem, considered merely as a poem, is not 
inecessarilv the worse on that account. Tin* finest 



52 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

poem in the Latin language, indeed the finest didactic 
poem in any language, was written in defence of the 
silliest and meanest of all systems of natural and 
moral philosophy. A poet may easily be pardoned 
for reasoning ill; but he cannot be pardoned for 5 
describing ill, for observing the world in which he 
lives so carelessly that his portraits bear no resem- 
blance to the originals, for exhibiting as copies from 
real life monstrous combinations of things which 
never were and never could be found together. What lo 
would be thought of a painter who should mix August 
and January in one landscape, who should introduce 
a frozen river into a harvest scene? Would it be 
a sufficient defence of. such a picture to say that every 
part was exquisitely coloured, that the green hedges, 15 
the apple-trees loaded with fruit, the wagons reeling 
under the yellow sheaves, and the sun-burned reapers 
wiping their foreheads, were very fine, and that the 
ice and the boys sliding were also very fine 1 To such 
a picture the ^ ' Deserted Village ' ' bears a great re- 20 
semblance. It is made up of incongruous parts. The 
village in its happy days is a true English village. 
The village in its decay is an Irish village. The 
felicity and the misery which Goldsmith has brought^ 
close together belong to two different countries, and 25 
to two different stages in the progress of society. He 
had assuredly never seen in his native island such a 
rural paradise, such a seat of plenty, content, and 
tranquillity, as his '' Auburn." He had assuredly 
never seen in England all the inhabitants of such a 30 
paradise turned out of their homes in one day and 
forced to emigrate in a body to America. The ham- 
let he had probably seen in Kent; the ejectment he 
had probably seen in Munster: but, by joining 
the two, he has produced something which never 35 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 53 

was and never will be seen in any part of the 
world. 

In 1773 Goldsmith tried his chance at Covent Gar- 
den with a second play, ''She Stoops to Conquer." 

5 The manager was not without great difficulty induced 
to bring this piece out. The sentimental comedy still 
reigned; and Goldsmith's comedies were not senti- 
mental. The ' ' Goodnatured Man" had been too 
funny to succeed ; yet the mirth of the ' ' Goodnatured 

10 ^lan ' ' was sober when compared with the rich drollery 
of ' ' She Stoops to Conquer, ' ' which is, in truth, an in- 
comparable farce in five acts. On this occasion, how- 
ever, genius triumphed. Pit, boxes, and galleries, 
were in a constant roar of laughter. If any bigoted 

15 admirer of Kelly and Cumberland ventured to hiss or 
groan, he was speedily silenced by a general cry of 
"turn him out," or "throw him over." Two genera- 
tions have since confirmed the verdict which was pro- 
nounced on that night. 

20 While Goldsmith was writing the "Deserted Vil- 
lage" and "She Stoops to Conquer," he was employed 
on works of a very different kind, works from which 
he derived little reputation but much profit. He com- 
piled for the use of schools a "History of Rome," by 

25 which he made 300L, a "History of England," by 
which he made 600?., a "History of Greece," for 
which he received 250?., a "Natural History," for 
which the booksellers covenanted to pay him 800 
guineas. These works he produced without any elab- 

30 orate research, by merely selecting, abridging, and 
translating into his own clear, pure, and flowing lan- 
guage what he found in books well known to the 
world, but too bulky or too dry for boys and girls. He 
committed some strange blunders; for he knew noth- 

35 ing with accuracy. Thus in his ' ' History of Eng- 



54 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

land" he tells us that Naseby is in Yorkshire ; nor did 
he correct this mistake when the book was reprinted. 
He was very nearly hoaxed into putting into the 
"History of Greece" an account of a battle between 
Alexander the Great and Montezuma. In his ''Ani- 5 
mated Nature ' ' he relates, with faith and with perfect 
gravity, all the most absurd lies which he could find in 
books of travels about gigantic Patagonians, monkeys 
that preach sermons, nightingales that repeat long 
conversations. ''If he can tell a horse from a cow," lo 
said Johnson, ''that is the extent of his knowledge of 
zoology. ' ' How little Goldsmith was qualified to write 
about the physical sciences is sufficiently proved by 
two anecdotes. He on one occasion denied that the sun 
is longer in the northern than in the southern signs. 15 
It was vain to cite the authority of Maupertuis. 
" Maupertuis ! " he cried, "I understand those mat- 
ters better than Maupertuis." On another occasion 
he, in defiance of the evidence of his own senses, 
maintained obstinately, and even angrily, that he 20 
chewed his dinner by moving his upper jaw. 

Yet, ignorant as Goldsmith was, few writers have 
done more to make the first steps in the laborious road 
to knowledge easy and pleasant. His compilations are 
widely distinguished from the compilations of ordi- 25 
nary book-makers. He was a great, perhaps an 
unequalled, master of the arts of selection and con- 
densation. In these respects his histories of Rome and 
of England, and still more his own abridgements of 
these histories, well deserve to be studied. In general 80 
nothing is less attractive than an epitome : but the 
epitomes of Goldsmith, even when most concise, are 
always amusing; and to read them is considered by 
intelligent children, not as a task, but as a pleasure. 

Goldsmith might now be considered as a prosperous 35 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 55 

man. He had the means of living in comfort, and 
even in what to one who had so often slept in barns 
and on bulks must have been luxury. His fame was 
great and was constantly rising. He lived in what 

5 was intellectually far the best society of the kingdom, 
in a society in which no talent or accomplishment was 
wanting, and in which the art of conversation was 
cultivated with splendid success. There probably 
w^ere never four talkers more admirable in four dif- 

loferent ways than Johnson, Burke, Beauclerk, and 
Garrick; and Goldsmith was on terms of intimacy 
with all the four. He aspired to share in their collo- 
quial renown ; but never was ambition more unfortu- 
nate. It may seem strange that a man who wrote with 

15 so much perspicuity, vivacity, and grace, should have 
been, whenever he took a part in conversation, an 
empty, noisy, blundering rattle. But on this point 
the evidence is overwhelming. So extraordinary was 
the contrast between Goldsmith 's published works and 

20 the silly things which he said, that Horace Walpole 
described him as an inspired idiot. ''Noll," said 
Garrick, ''wrote like an angel, and talked like poor 
Poll." Chamier declared that it was a hard exercise 
of faith to believe that so foolish a chatterer could 

25 have really written the "Traveller." Even Boswell 
could say, with contemptuous compassion, that he 
liked very well to hear honest Goldsmith run on. 
' ' Yes, sir, ' ' said Johnson ; ' ' but he should not like to 
hear himself." Minds differ as rivers differ. There 

30 are transparent and sparkling rivers from which it is 
delightful to drink as they flow; to such rivers the 
minds of such men as Burke and Johnson may be 
compared. But there are rivers of which the water 
when first drawn is turbid and noisome, but becomes 

35 pellucid as crystal, and delicious to the taste, if it be 



56 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

suffered to stand till it has deposited a sediment ; and 
such a river is a type of the mind of Goldsmith. His 
first thoughts on every subject were confused even 
to absurdity; but they required only a little time to 
work themselves clear. When he wrote they had that 5 
time ; and therefore his readers pronounced him a 
man of genius ; but when he talked he talked nonsense, 
and made himself the laughing-stock of his hearers. 
He was painfully sensible of his inferiority in con- 
versation ; he felt every failure keenly ; yet he had not lo 
sufficient judgment and self-command to hold his 
tongue. His animal spirits and vanity were always 
impelling him to try to do the one thing which he 
could not do. After every attempt he felt that he had 
exposed himself, and writhed with shame and vexa-i5 
tion ; yet the next moment he began again. 

His associates seem to have regarded him with kind- 
ness, which, in spite of their admiration of his writ- 
ings, was not unmixed with contempt. In truth, there 
was in his character much to love, but very little to 20 
respect. His heart was soft even to weakness ; he was 
so generous that he quite forgot to be just ; he forgave 
injuries so readily that he might be said to invite 
them ; and was so liberal to beggars that he had noth- 
ing left for his tailor and his butcher. He was vain, 25 
sensual, frivolous, profuse, improvident. One vice of 
a darker shade was imputed to him, envy. But there 
is not the least reason to believe that this bad passion, 
though it sometimes made him wince and utter fretful 
exclamations, ever impelled him to injure by wicked 30 
arts the reputation of any of his rivals. The. truth 
probably is, that he was not more envious, but merely 
less prudent, than his neighbours. His heart was on 
his lips. All those small jealousies, which are but too 
common among men of letters, but which a man of let- 35 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 57 

ters who is also a man of the world does his best to 
conceal, Goldsmith avowed with the simplicity of a 
child. When he was envious, instead of affecting in- 
difference, instead of damning with faint praise, 

5 instead of doing injuries slily and in the dark, he told 
every body that he was envious. ''Do not, pray, do 
not talk of Johnson in such terms," he said to Bos- 
well; "you harrow up my very soul." George 
Steevens and Cumberland were men far too cunning 

10 to say such a thing. They would have echoed the 
praises of the man whom they envied, and then have 
sent to the newspapers anonymous libels upon him. 
Both what was good and what was bad in Goldsmith 's 
character was to his associates a perfect security that 

15 he would never commit such villainy. He was neither 
ill-natured enough nor long-headed enough to be 
guilty of any malicious act which required contrivance 
and disguise. 

Goldsmith has sometimes been represented as a man 

20 of genius, cruelly treated by the world, and doomed to 
struggle with difficulties which at last broke his heart. 
But no representation can be more remote from the 
truth. He did, indeed, go through much sharp misery 
before he had done .anything considerable in litera- 

25 ture. But, after his name had appeared on the title- 
page of the "Traveller," he had none but himself to 
blame for his distresses. His average income, during 
the last seven years of his life, certainly exceeded 
400?. a year; and 400/. a year ranked, among the in- 

30 comes of that day, at least as high as SOOl. a year 
would rank at present. A single man living in the 
Temple with 400/. a year might be called opulent. Not 
one in ten of the young gentlemen of good families 
who were studying the law there had so much. But 

35 all tlie wealth which Lord Olive had brought from 



58 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

Bengal, and Sir Lawrence Dundas from Germany, 
joined together, would not have sufficed for Gold- 
smith. He spent twice as much as he had. He wore 
fine clothes, gave dinners of several courses, paid court 
to venal beauties. He had also, it should be remem-5 
bered, to the honour of his heart, though not of his 
head, a guinea, or five, or ten, according to the state 
of his purse, ready for any tale of distress, true or 
false. But it was not in dress or feasting, in promis- 
cuous amours or promiscuous charities, that his chief lo 
expense lay. He had been from boyhood a gambler, 
and at once the most sanguine and the most unskilful 
of gamblers. For a time he put off the day of in- 
evitable ruin by temporary expedients. He obtained 
advances from booksellers, by promising to execute 15 
works which he never began. But at length this 
source of supply failed. He owed more than 2000?., 
and he saw no hope of extrication from his embarrass- 
ments. His spirits and health gave way. He was 
attacked by a nervous fever, which he thought him- 20 
self competent to treat. It would have been happy 
for him if his medical skill had been appreciated as 
justly by himself as by others. Notwithstanding the 
degree which he pretended to ha,ve received at Padua, 
he could procure no patients. ^*I do not practise, "25 
he once said; "I make it a rule to prescribe only for 
my friends.'' **Pray, dear Doctor," said Beauclerk, 
*' alter your rule; and prescribe only for your ene- 
mies." Goldsmith now, in spite of this excellent ad- 
vice, prescribed for himself. The remedy aggravated 30 
the malady. The sick man was induced to call in real 
physicians; and they at one time imagined that they 
had cured the disease. Still his weakness and rest- 
lessness continued. He could get no sleep. He could 
take no food. ''You are worse," said one of his 35 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 59 

medical attendants, ''than you should ])e from the 
degree of fever which you have. Is your mind at 
ease ? " ' ' No, it is not, ' ' were the last recorded words 
of Oliver Goldsmith. He died on the third of April, 

5 1774, in his forty-sixth year. He was laid in the 
churchyard of the Temple; but the spot was not 
marked by any inscription, and is now forgotten. The 
coffin was followed by Burke and Reynolds. Both 
these great men were sincere mourners. Burke, when 

10 he heard of Goldsmith's death, had burst into a flood 
of tears. Reynolds had been so much moved by the 
news that he had flung aside his brush and palette for 
the day. 

A short time after Goldsmith's death, a little poem 

15 appeared, which will, as long as our language lasts, 
associate the names of his two illustrious friends with 
his own. It has already been mentioned that he 
sometimes felt keenly the sarcasm which his wild 
blundering talk brought upon him. He was, not long 

20 before his last illness, provoked into retaliating. He 
wisely betook himself to his pen; -and at that weapon 
he proved himself a match for all his assailants to- 
gether. Within a small compass he drew with a sin- 
gularly easy and vigourous pencil the characters of 

25 nine or ten of his intimate associates. Though this 
little work did not receive his last touches, it must 
always be regarded as a masterpiece. It is impos- 
sible, however, not to wish that four or five likenesses 
which have no interest for posterity were wanting to 

30 that noble gallery, and that their places were sup- 
plied by sketches of Johnson and Gibbon, as happy 
and vivid as the sketches of Burke and Garrick. 

Some of Goldsmith's friends and admirers honoured 
him with a cenotaph in Westminster Abbey. Nolle- 

35 kens was the sculptor ; and Johnson wrote the inscrip- 



60 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

tion. It is much to be lamented that Johnson did not 
leave to posterity a more durable and a more valuable 
memorial to his friend. A life of Goldsmith would 
have been an inestimable addition to the Lives of 
the Poets. No man appreciated Goldsmith's writings 5 
more justly than Johnson; no man was better ac- 
quainted with Goldsmith's character and habits; and 
no man was more competent to delineate with truth 
and spirit the peculiarities of a mind in which great 
powers were found in company with great weaknesses, lo 
But the list of poets to whose works Johnson was 
requested by the booksellers to furnish prefaces ended 
with Lyttelton, who died in 1773. The line seems to 
have been drawn expressly for the purpose of exclud- 
ing the person whose portrait would have most fitly is 
closed the series. Goldsmith, however, has been for- 
tunate in his biographers. Within a few years his 
life has been written by Mr. Prior, by Mr. Wash- 
ington Irving, and by Mr. Forster. The diligence 
of Mr. Prior deserves great praise : the style of Mr. 20 
Washington Irving is always pleasing ; but the high- 
est place must, in justice, be assigned to the eminently 
interesting work of Mr. Forster. 



FREDERIC THE GREAT 

{April, 1842) 

Frederic the Great and His Times. Edited, with an intro- 
duction, by Thomas Campbell, Esq. 2 vols. 8vo. London: 
1842. 

This work, which has the high honour of being in- 
troduced to the world by the author of Lochiel and 
Hohenlinden, is not wholly unworthy of so distin- 
guished a chaperon. It professes, indeed, to be no 

5 more than a compilation ; but it is an exceedingly 
amusing compilation, and we shall be glad to have 
more of it. The narrative comes down at present 
only to the commencement of the Seven Years' War, 
and therefore does not comprise the most interesting 

10 portion of Frederic's reign. 

It may not be unacceptable to our readers that we 
should take this opportunity of presenting them with 
a slight sketch of the life of the greatest king that has, 
in modern times, succeeded by right of birth to a 

15 throne. If may, we fear, be impossible to compress so 
long and eventful a story within the limits which we 
must prescribe to ourselves. Should we be compelled 
to break off, we may perhaps, when the continuation 
of this work appears, return to the subject. 

20 The Prussian monarchy, the youngest of the great 
European states, but in population and revenue the 
fifth among them, and in art, science, and civilisation 
entitled to the third, if not to the second place, sprang 

61 



62 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

from a humble origin. About the beginning of the 
fifteenth century, the marquisate of Brandenburg was 
bestowed by the Emperor Sigismund on the noble 
family of Hohenzollern. In the sixteenth century that 
family embraced the Lutheran doctrines. It obtained 5 
from the King of Poland, early in the seventeenth 
century, the investiture of the duchy of Prussia. 
Even after this accession of territory, the chiefs of the 
house of Hohenzollern hardly ranked with the Electors 
of Saxony and Bavaria. The soil of Brandenburg lo 
was for the most part sterile. Even round Berlin, 
the capital of the province, and round Potsdam, the 
favourite residence of the Margraves, the country was 
a desert. In some places, the deep sand could with 
difficulty be forced by assiduous tillage to yield thin 15 
crops of rye and oats. In other places, the ancient 
forests, from which the conquerors of the Roman em- 
pire had descended on the Danube, remained un- 
touched by the hand of man. Where the soil was rich 
it was generally marshy, and its insalubrity repelled 20 
the cultivators whom its fertility attracted. Frederic 
William, called the Great Elector, was the prince to 
whose policy his successors have agreed to ascribe their 
greatness. He acquired by the peace of Westphalia 
several valuable possessions, and among th^m the rich 25 
city and district of Magdeburg ; and he leivto his son 
Frederic a principality as considerable as any which 
was not called a kingdom. 

Frederic aspired to the style of royalty. Ostenta- 
tious and profuse, negligent of his true interests and 30 
of his high duties, insatiably eager for frivolous dis- 
tinctions, he added nothing to the real weight of the 
state which he governed: perhaps he transmitted his 
inheritance to his children impaired rather than aug- 
mented in value ; but he succeeded in gaining the great 35 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 63 

object of his life, the title of King. In the year 1700 
he assumed this new dignity. He had on that occa- 
sion to undergo all the mortifications which fall to the 
lot of ambitious upstarts. Compared with the other 

5 crowned heads of Europe, he made a figure resembling 
that which a Nabob or a Commissary, who had bought 
a title, would make in the company of Peers whose 
ancestors had been attainted for treason against the 
Plantagenets. The envy of the class which Frederic 

10 quitted, and the civil scorn of the class into which he 
intruded himself, were marked in very significant 
ways. The Elector of Saxony at first refused to 
acknowledge the new Majesty. Louis the Fourteenth 
looked down on his brother King with an air not 

15 unlike that with which the Count in Moliere 's play 
regards IMonsieur Jourdain, just fresh from the mum- 
mery of being made a gentleman. Austria exacted 
large sacrifices in return for her recognition, and at 
last gave it ungraciously. 

20 Frederic was succeeded by his son, Frederic Wil- 
liam, a prince who must be allowed to have possessed 
some talents for administration, but whose character 
was disfigured by odious vices, and whose eccentricities 
were such as had never before been seen out of a mad- 

25 house. He was exact and diligent in the transacting 
of business; and he was the first who formed the de- 
sign of obtaining for Prussia a place among the Eu- 
ropean powers, altogether out of proportion to her 
extent and population, by means of a strong military 

30 organization. Strict economy enabled him to keep up 
a peace establishment of sixty thousand troops. These 
troops were disciplined in such a manner, that placed 
beside them, the household regiments of Versailles and 
St. James's would have appeared an awkward squad. 

35 The master of such a force could not but be regarded 



64 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

by all his neighbours as a formidable enemy and a 
valuable ally. 

But the mind of Frederic William was so ill regu- 
lated, that all his inclinations became passions, and 
all his passions partook of the character of moral and 5 
intellectual disease. His parsimony degenerated into 
sordid avarice. His taste for military pomp and order 
became a mania, like that of a Dutch burgomaster for 
tulips, or that of a member of the Roxburghe Club for 
Caxtons. While the envoys of the Court of Berlin lo 
were in a state of such squalid poverty as moved the 
laughter of foreign capitals, while the food placed be- 
fore the princes and princesses of the blood-royal of 
Prussia was too scanty to appease hunger, and so bad 
that even hunger loathed it, no price was thought toois 
extravagant for tall recruits. The ambition of the 
King was to form a brigade of giants, and every coun- 
try was ransacked by his agents for men above the 
ordinary stature. These researches were not confined 
to Europe. No head that towered above the crowd in 20 
the bazaars of Aleppo, of Cairo, or of Surat, could 
escape the crimps of Frederic William. One Irishman 
more than seven feet high, who was picked up in Lon- 
don by the Prussian ambassador, received a bounty of 
near thirteen hundred pounds sterling, very much 25 
more than the ambassador's salary. This extrava- 
gance was the more absurd, because a stout youth of 
five feet eight, who might have been procured for a 
few dollars,, would in all probability have been a much 
more valuable soldier. But to Frederic William, this 30 
huge Irishman was what a brass Otho, or a Vinegar 
Bible, is to a collector of a different kind. 

It is remarkable, that though the main end of Fred- 
eric William's administration was to have a great mili- 
tary force, though his reign forms an important epoch 35 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. g5 

in the history of military discipline, and though his 
dominant passion was the love of military display, he 
was yet one of the most pacific of princes. We are 
afraid that his aversion to war was not the effect of 
5 humanity, but was merely one of his thousand whims. 
His feeling about his troops seems to have resembled a 
miser's feeling about his money. He loved to collect 
them, to count them, to see them increase; but he 
could not find it in his heart to break in upon the 

10 precious hoard. He looked forward to some future 
time when his Patagonian battalions were to drive 
hostile infantry before them like sheep : but this future 
time was always receding; and it is probable that, if 
his life had been prolonged thirty years, his superb 

15 army would never have seen any harder service than 
a sham fight in the fields near Berlin. But the great 
military means which he had collected were destined to 
be employed by a spirit far more daring and inventive 
than his own. 

20 Frederic, surnamed the Great, son of Frederic 
William, was born in January, 1712. It may safely 
be pronounced that he had received from nature a 
strong and sharp understanding, and a rare firmness 
of temper and intensity of will. As to the other parts 

25 of his character, it is difficult to say whether they are 
to be ascribed to nature, or to the strange training 
which he underwent. The history of his boyhood is 
painfully interesting. Oliver Twist in the parish 
workhouse, Smike at Dotheboy's Hall, were petted 

30 children when compared with this wretched heir ap- 
parent of a crown. The nature of Frederic William 
was hard and bad, and the habit of exercising arbi- 
trary power had made him frightfully savage. His 
rage constantly vented itself to right and left in 

35 curses and blows. When his IMajesty took a walk, 



5'(i MACAULAT'S ESSAYS. 

every human being fled before him, as if a tiger had 
broken loose from a menagerie. If he met a lady in 
the street, he gave her a kick, and told her to go home 
and mind her brats. If he saw a clergyman staring 
at the soldiers, he admonished the reverend gentle- 5 
man to betake himself to study and prayer, and en- 
forced this pious advice by a sound caning, adminis- 
tered on the spot. But it was in his own house that 
he was most unreasonable and ferocious. His palace 
was hell, and he the most execrable of fiends, a cross lo 
between Moloch and Puck. His son Frederic and his 
daughter Wilhelmina, afterwards Margravine of 
Bareuth, were in an especial manner objects of his 
aversion. His own mind was uncultivated. He de- 
spised literature. He hated infidels, papists, and is 
metaphysicians, and did not very well understand in 
what they differed from each other. The business of 
life, according to him, was to drill and to be drilled. 
The recreations suited to a prince, were to sit in a 
cloud of tobacco smoke, to sip Swedish beer between 20 
the puffs of the pipe, to play backgammon for three 
halfpence a rubber, to kill wild hogs, and to shoot 
partridges by the thousand. The Prince Royal 
showed little inclination either for the serious em- 
ployments or for the amusements of his father. He 25 
shirked the duties of the parade : he detested the fume 
of tobacco : he had no taste either for backgammon or 
for field sports. He had an exquisite ear and per- 
formed skilfully on the flute. His earliest instructors 
had been French refugees, and they had awakened in 30 
him a strong passion for French literature and 
French society. Frederic William regarded these 
tastes as effeminate and contemptible, and, by abuse 
and persecution, made them still stronger. Things 
became worse when the Prince Royal attained that 35 



FEEDEEIC THE GEEAT. 67 

time of life at which the great revolution in the hu- 
man mind and body takes place. He was guilty of 
some youthful indiscretions, which no good and wise 
parent would regard with severity. At a later period 

she was accused, truly or falsely, of vices from which 
History averts her eyes, and which even Satire 
blushes to name, vices such that, to borrow the ener- 
getic language of Lord Keeper Coventry, *'the de- 
praved nature of man, which of itself carrieth man to 

10 all other sin, abhorreth them.*' But the offences of 
his youth were not characterized by any degree of 
turpitude. They excited, however, transports of 
rage in the King, who hated all faults except those to 
which he was himself inclined, and who conceived 

15 that he made ample atonement to Heaven for his 
brutality by holding the softer passions in detesta- 
tion. The Prince Royal, too, was not one of those who 
are content to take their religion on trust. He asked 
puzzling questions, and brought forward arguments 

20 which seemed to savour of something different from 
pure Lutheranism. The King suspected that his son 
was inclined to be a heretic of some sort or other, 
whether Calvinist or Atheist his Majesty did not very 
well know. The ordinary malignity of Frederic 

25 William was bad enough. He now thought malignity 
a part of his duty as a Christian man, and all the con- 
science that he had stimulated his hatred. The flute 
was broken: the French books were sent out of the 
palace: the Prince was kicked and cudgelled, and 

30 pulled by the hair. At dinner the plates were hurled 
at his head : sometimes he was restricted to bread and 
water: sometimes he was forced to swallow food so 
nauseous that he could not keep it on his stomach. 
Once his father knocked him down, dragged him 

35 along the floor to a window, and was with difficulty 



53 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

prevented from strangling him with the cord of the 
curtain. The Queen, for the crime of not wishing to 
see her son murdered, was subjected to the grossest 
indignities. The Princess Wilhelmina, who took her 
brother's part, was treated almost as ill as Mrs. 5 
Brownrigg's apprentices. Driven to despair, the un- 
happy youth tried to run away. Then the fury of 
the old tyrant rose to madness. The Prince was an 
officer in the army : his flight was therefore desertion ; 
and, in the moral code of Frederic William, deser- 10 
tion was the highest of all crimes. "Desertion," 
says this royal theologian, in one of his half crazy 
letters, ''is from hell. It is a work of the children of 
the Devil. No child of God could possibly be guilty 
of it." An accomplice of the Prince, in spite of the is 
recommendation of a court martial, was mercilessly 
put to death. It seemed probable that the Prince 
himself would suffer the same fate. It was with dif- 
ficulty that the intercession of the States of Holland, 
of the Kings of Sweden and Poland, and of the Em- 20 
peror of Germany, saved the House of Brandenburg 
from the stain of an unnatural murder. After 
months of cruel suspense, Frederic learned that his 
life would be spared. He remained, however, long a 
prisoner ; but he was not on that account to be pitied. 25 
He found in his gaolers a tenderness which he had 
never found in his father; his table was not sumptu- 
ous, but he had wholesome food in sufficient quantity 
to appease hunger: he could read the Henriade with- 
out being kicked, and could play on his flute without 30 
having it broken over his head. 

When his confinement terminated he was a man. 
He had nearly completed his twenty-first year, and 
could scarcely be kept much longer under the re- 
straints which had made his boyhood miserable. 35 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 69 

Suffering had matured his understanding, while it 
had hardened his heart and soured his temper. He 
had learnt self-command and dissimulation: he af- 
fected to conform to some of his father's views, and 

5 submissively accepted a wife, who was a wife only 
in name, from his father's hand. He also served 
with credit, though without any opportunity of ac- 
quiring brilliant distinction, under the command of 
Prince Eugene, during a campaign marked by no 

10 extraordinary events. He was now permitted to keep 
a separate establishment, and was therefore able to 
indulge with caution his own tastes. Partly in order 
to conciliate the King, and partly, no doubt, from 
inclination, he gave up a portion of his time to mili- 

15 tary and political business, and thus gradually ac- 
quired such an aptitude for affairs as his most inti- 
mate associates were not aware that he possessed. 

His favourite abode was at Rheinsberg, near the 
frontier which separates the Prussian dominions from 

20 the Duchy of Mecklenburg. Rheinsberg is a fertile 
and smiling spot, in the midst of the sandy waste of 
the Marquisate. The mansion, surrounded by woods 
of oak and beech, looks out upon a spacious lake. 
There Frederic amused himself by laying out gardens 

25 in regular alleys and intricate mazes, by building obe- 
lisks, temples, and conservatories, and by collecting 
rare fruits and flowers. His retirement was enlivened 
by a few companions, among whom he seems to have 
preferred those who, by birth or extraction, were 

30 French. With these inmates he dined and supped 
well, drank freely, and amused himself sometimes 
with concerts, and sometimes with holding chapters 
of a fraternity which he called the Order of Bayard ; 
but literature was his chief resource. 

35 His education had been entirely French. The long 



70 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

ascendancy which Louis the Fourteenth had enjoyed, 
and the eminent merit of the tragic and comic drama- 
tists, of the satirists, and of the preachers who had 
flourished under that magnificent prince, had made 
the French language predominant in Europe. Evens 
in countries which had a national literature, and 
which could boast of names greater than those of 
Racine, of Moliere, and of Massillon, in the country 
of Dante, in the country of Cervantes, in the country 
of Shakespeare and Milton, the intellectual fashions lo 
of Paris had been to a great extent adopted. Ger- 
many had not yet produced a single masterpiece of 
poetry or eloquence. In Germany, therefore, the 
French taste reigned without rival and without limit. 
Every youth of rank was taught to speak and write 15 
French. That he should speak and write his own 
tongue with politeness, or even with accuracy and 
facility, was regarded as comparatively an unimpor- 
tant object. Even Frederic William, with all his 
rugged Saxon prejudices, thought it necessary that 20 
his children should know French, and quite unneces- 
sary that they should be well versed in German. The 
Latin was positively interdiqted. ''My son," his 
Majesty wrote, ''shall not learn Latin; and, more 
than that, I will not suffer anybody even to mention 25 
such a thing to me. ' ' One of the preceptors ventured 
to read the Golden Bull in the original w^ith the 
Prince Royal. Frederic William entered the room, 
and broke out in his usual kingly style. 

"Rascal, what are you at there?" 30 

"Please your Majesty," answered the preceptor, 
' ' I was explaining the Golden Bull to his Royal High- 
ness." 

" I '11 Golden Bull you, you rascal ! ' ' roared the 
Majesty of Prussia. Up went the King's cane; away 35 



PREDEEIC THE GREAT. 71 

ran the terrified instructor; and Frederic's classical 
studies ended for ever. He now and then affected to 
quote Latin sentences, and produced such exquisitely 
Ciceronian phrases as these: — ''Stante pede morire," 
5 — ' ' De gustibus non est disputandus ' ' — ' ' Tot verbas 
tot spondera." Of Italian, he had not enough to read 
a page of Metastasio with ease; and of the Spanish 
and English, he did not, as far as we are aware, un- 
derstand a single word, 

10 As the highest human compositions to which he had 
access were those of the French writers, it is not 
strange that his admiration for those writers should 
have been unbounded. His ambitious and eager 
temper early prompted him to imitate what he ad- 

15 mired. The wish, perhaps, dearest to his heart was, 
that he might rank among the masters of French 
rhetoric and poetry. He wrote prose and verse as 
indefatigably as if he had been a starving hack of 
Cave or Osborn; but Nature, which had bestowed on 

20 him, in a large measure, the talents of a captain and 
of an administrator, had withheld from him those 
higher and rarer gifts, without which industry labors 
in vain to produce immortal eloquence and song. 
And, indeed, had he been blessed with more imag- 

25 ination, wit, and fertility of thought, than he appears 
to have had, he would still have been subject to one 
great disadvantage, which would, in all probability, 
have for ever prevented him from taking a high place 
among men of letters. He had not the full command 

30 of any language. There was no machine of thought 
which he could employ with perfect ease, confidence 
and freedom. He had German enough to scold his 
servants, or to give the word of command to his 
grenadiers ; but his grammar and pronunciation were 

B5 extremely bad. He found it difficult to make out the 



72 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

meaning even of the simplest German poetry. On 
one occasion a version of Racine's Iphigenie was read 
to him. He held the French original in his hand; 
but was forced to own that, even with such help, he 
could not understand the translation. Yet, though 5 
he had neglected his mother tongue in order to be- 
stow all his attention on French, his French was, 
after all, the French of a foreigner. It was necessary 
for him to have always at his beck some men of let- 
ters from Paris to point out the solecisms and false 10 
rhymes of which, to the last, he was frequently guilty. 
Even had he possessed the poetic faculty, of which, 
as far as we can judge, he was utterly destitute, the 
want of a language would have prevented him from 
being a great poet. No noble work of imagination, 15 
as far as we recollect, was ever composed by any man, 
except in a dialect which he had learned without re- 
membering how or when, and which he had spoken 
with perfect ease before he had ever analysed its 
structure. Romans of great abilities wrote Greek 20 
verses; but how many of those verses have deserved 
to live? Many men of eminent genius have, in mod- 
ern times, written Latin poems ; but, as far as we are 
aware, none of those poems, not even Milton's, can be 
ranked in the first class of art, or even very high in 25 
the second. It is not strange, therefore, that, in the 
French verses of Frederic, we can find nothing be- 
yond the reach of any man of good parts and indus- 
try, nothing above the level of Newdigate and Seaton- 
ian poetry. His best pieces may perhaps rank with 30 
the worst in Dodsley's collection. In history, he 
succeeded better. We do not, indeed, find, in any 
part of his voluminous IMemoirs, either deep reflection 
or vivid painting. But the narrative is distinguished 
by clearness, conciseness, good sense, and a certain 35 



FEEDEEIC THE GEEAT. 73 

air of truth and simplicity, which is singularly grace- 
ful in a man who, having done great things, sits down 
to relate them. On the whole, however, none of his 
writings are so agreeable to us as his Letters, par- 

5 ticularly those which are written with earnestness, 
and are not embroidered with verses. 

It is not strange that a young man devoted to 
literature, and acquainted only with the literature of 
France, should have looked with profound veneration 

10 on the genius of Voltaire. ' ' A man who has never 
seen the sun," says Calderon, in one of his charming 
comedies, ''cannot be blamed for thinking that no 
glory can exceed that of the moon. A man who has 
seen neither moon nor sun, cannot be blamed for 

15 talking of the unrivalled brightness of the morning 
star." Had Frederic been able to read Homer and 
Milton, or even Virgil and Tasso, his admiration of 
the Henriade would prove that he was utterly desti- 
tute of the power of discerning what is excellent in 

JO art. Had he been familiar with Sophocles or Shakes- 
peare, we should have expected him to appreciate 
Zaire more justly. Had he been able to study Thucy- 
dides and Tacitus in the original Greek and Latin, 
he would have known that there were heights in the 

>5 eloquence of history far beyond the reach of the au- 
thor of the Life of Charles the Twelfth. But the 
finest heroic poem, several of the most powerful 
tragedies, and the most brilliant and picturesque his- 
torical work that Frederic had ever read, were Vol- 

jotaire's. Such high and various excellence moved the 
young prince almost to adoration. The opinions of 
Voltaire on religious and philosophical questions had 
not yet been fully exhibited to the public. At a later 
period, when an exile from his country and at open 

35 war with the Church, he spoke out. But when Fred- 



74 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

eric was at Rheinsberg, Voltaire was still a courtier; 
and, though he could not always curb his petulant 
wit, he had as yet published nothing that could ex- 
clude him from Versailles, and little that a divine of 
the mild and generous school of Grotius and Tillotsong 
might not read with pleasure. In the Henriade, in 
Zaire, and in Alzire, Christian piety is exhibited in 
the most amiable form; and, some years after the 
period of which we are writing, a Pope condescended 
to accept the dedication of JMahomet. The real senti-io 
ments of the poet, however, might be clearly perceived 
by a keen eye through the decent disguise with which 
he veiled them, and could not escape the sagacity of 
Frederic, who held similar opinions, and had been 
accustomed to practice similar dissimulation. 15 

The Prince wrote to his idol in the style of a wor- 
shipper ; and Voltaire replied with exquisite grace and 
address. A correspondence followed, which may be 
studied with advantage by those who wish to become 
proficients in the ignoble art of flattery. No man ever 20 
paid compliments better than Voltaire. His sweetest 
confectionery had always a delicate, yet stimulating 
flavour, which was delightful to palates wearied by 
the coarse preparations of inferior artists. It was 
only from his hand that so much sugar could be swal- 25 
lowed without making the swallower sick. Copies of 
verses, writing desks, trinkets of amber, were ex- 
changed between the friends. Frederic confided his 
writings to Voltaire ; and Voltaire applauded, as if 
Frederic had been Racine and Bossuet in one. One 30 
of his Royal Highness 's performances was a refuta- 
tion of IMachiavelli. Voltaire undertook to convey it 
to the press. It was entitled the Anti-Machiavel, and 
was an edifying homily against rapacity, perfidy, 
arbitrary government, unjust war, in short, against 35 



FEEDERIC THE GREAT. 75 

almost every thing for which its author is now remem- 
bered among men. 

The old King uttered now and then a ferocious 
growl at the diversions of Kheinsberg. But his health 

5 was broken ; his end was approaching, and his vigour 
was impaired. He had only one pleasure left, that 
of seeing tall soldiers. He could always be propitiated 
by a present of a grenadier of six feet four or six 
feet five; and such presents were from time to time 

10 judiciously offered by his son. 

Early in the year 1740, Frederic William met death 
with a firmness and dignity worthy of a better and 
wiser man ; and Frederic, who had just completed his 
twenty-eighth year, became King of Pjrussia. His 

15 character was little understood. That he had good 
abilities, indeed, no person who had talked with him, 
or corresponded with him, could doubt. But the easy, 
Epicurean life which he had led, his love of good 
cookery and good wine, of music, of conversation, of 

»o light literature, led many to regard him as a sensual 
and intellectual voluptuary. His habit of canting 
about moderation, peace, liberty, and the happiness 
which a good mind derives from the happiness of 
others, had imposed on some who should have known 

J5 better. Those who thought best of him expected a 
Telemachus after Fenelon's pattern. Others predicted 
the approach of a Medicean age, an age propitious to 
learning and art, and not unpropitious to pleasure. 
Nobody had the least suspicion that a tyrant of ex- 

10 traordinary military and political talents, of industry 
more extraordinary still, without fear, without faith, 
and without mercy, had ascended the throne. 

The disappointment of Falstaff at his old boqn-com- 
panion's coronation was not more bitter than that 

J5 which awaited some of the inmates of Rheinsberg. 



76 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

They had long looked forward to the accession of 
their patron, as to the event from which their own 
prosperity and greatness was to date. They had at 
last reached the promised land, the land which they 
had figured to themselves as flowing with milk and 5 
honey; and they found it a desert. "No more of 
these fooleries," was the short, sharp admonition 
given by Frederic to one of them. It soon became 
plain that, in the most important points, the new sov- 
ereign bore a strong family likeness to his predeces-io 
sor. There was indeed a wide difference between the 
father and the son as respected extent and vigour of 
intellect, speculative opinions, amusements, studies, 
outward demeanour. But the groundwork of the 
character was the same in both. To both were com- 15 
mon the love of order, the love of business, the mili- 
tary taste, the parsimony, the imperious spirit, the 
temper irritable even to ferocity, the pleasure in the 
pain and humiliation of others. But these propen- 
sities had in Frederic William partaken of the general 20 
unsoundness of his mind, and wore a very different 
aspect when found in company with the strong and 
cultivated understanding of his successor. Thus, for 
example, Frederic was as anxious as any prince could 
be about the efficiency of his army. But this anxiety 25 
never degenerated into a monomania, like that which 
led his father to pay fancy prices for giants. Frederic 
was as thrifty about money as any prince or any 
private man ought to be. But he did not conceive, 
like his father, that it was worth while to eat unwhole- 30 
some cabbages for the sake of saving four or five rix- 
dollars in the year. Frederic was, we fear, as malevo- 
lent as his father; but Frederic's wit enabled him 
often to show his malevolence in ways more decent 
than those to which his father resorted, and to inflict 35 



FREDEKIC THE GREAT. 77 

misery and degradation by a taunt instead of a blow. 
Frederic, it is true, by no means relinquished his 
hereditary privilege of kicking and cudgelling. His 
practice, however, as to that matter, differed in some 

5 important respects from his father's. To Frederic 
William, the mere circumstance that any persons 
whatever, men, women, or children, Prussians or for- 
eigners, were within reach of his toes and of his cane, 
appeared to be a sufficient reason for proceeding to 

10 belabour them. Frederic required provocation as 
well as vicinity ; nor was he ever known to inflict this 
paternal species of correction on any but his born 
subjects; though on one occasion M. Thiebault had 
reason, during a few seconds, to anticipate the high 

15 honour of being an exception to this general rule. 
The character of Frederic was still very imper- 
fectly understood either by his subjects or by his 
neighbours, when events occurred which exhibited it 
in a strong light, A few months after his accession 

20 died Charles the Sixth, Emperor of Germany, the 
last descendant, in the male line, of the House of 
Austria. 

Charles left no son, and had, long before his death, 
relinquished all hopes of male issue. During the latter 

25 part of his life, his principal object had been to se- 
cure to his descendants in the female line the many 
crowns of the house of Hapsburg. With this view, 
he had promulgated a new law of succession^ widely 
celebrated throughout Europe under the name of the 

30 Pragmatic Sanction. By virtue of this law, his daugh- 
ter, the Archduchess Maria Theresa, wife of Francis 
of Loraine, succeeded to the dominions of her ances- 
tors. 

No sovereign has ever taken possession of a throne 

35 by a clearer title. A]\ the politics of the Austrian 



78 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

cabinet had, during twenty years, been directed to 
one single end, the settlement of the succession. From 
every person whose rights could be considered as in- 
juriously affected, renunciations in the most solemn 
form had been obtained. The new law had been rati- 5 
tied by the Estates of all the kingdoms and principali- 
ties which made up the great Austrian monarchy. 
England, France, Spain, Russia, Poland, Prussia, 
Sweden, Denmark, the Germanic body, had bound 
themselves by treaty to maintain the Pragmatic Sane- lo 
tion. That instrument was placed under the protec- 
tion of the public faith of the whole civilised world. 

Even if no positive stipulations on this subject had 
existed, the arrangement was one which no good man 
would have been willing to disturb. It was a peace- is 
able arrangement. It was an arrangement acceptable 
to the great population whose happiness was chiefly 
concerned. It was an arrangement which made no 
change in the distribution of power among the states 
of Christendom. It was an arrangement which could 20 
be set aside, only by means of a general war ; and, if 
it were set aside, the effect would be that the equi- 
librium of Europe would be deranged, that the loyal 
and patriotic feelings of millions would be cruelly 
outraged, and that great provinces which had been 25 
united for centuries would be torn from each other 
by main force. 

The sovereigns of Europe were, therefore, bound by 
every obligation which those who are intrusted with 
power over their fellow-creatures ought to hold most 30 
sacred, to respect and defend the rights of the Arch- 
duchess. Her situation and her personal qualities 
were such as might be expected to move the mind of 
any generous man to pity, admiration, and chivalrous 
tenderness. She was in her twenty-fourth year. Her 35 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 79 

form was majestic, her features beautiful, her coun- 
tenance sweet and animated, her voice musical, her 
deportment gracious and dignified. In all domestic 
relations she was without reproach. She was married 

5 to a husband whom she loved, and was on the point of 
giving birth to a child, when death deprived her of 
her father. The loss of a parent, and the new cares 
of empire, were too much for her in the delicate state 
of her liealth. Her spirits were depressed, and her 

10 cheek lost its bloom. Yet it seemed that she had little 
cause for anxiety. It seemed that justice, humanity, 
and the faith of treaties would have their due weight, 
and that the settlement so solemnly guaranteed would 
be quietly carried into effect. England, Russia, Po- 

15 land, and Holland, declared in form their intention 
to adhere to their engagements. The French min- 
isters made a verbal declaration to the same effect. 
But from no quarter did the young Queen of Hun- 
gary receive stronger assurances of friendship and 

20 support than from the King of Prussia. 

Yet the King of Prussia, the Anti-Machiavel, had 
already fully determined to commit the great crime of 
violating his plighted faith, of robbing the ally whom 
he was bound to defend, and of plunging all Europe 

25 into a long, bloody, and desolating war; and all this 
for no end whatever, except that he might extend his 
dominions, and see his name in the gazettes. He de- 
termined to assemble a great army with speed and se- 
crecy, to invade Silesia before Maria Theresa should 

30 be apprised of his design, and to add that rich 
province to his kingdom. 

We will not condescend to refute at length the 
pleas which the compiler of the IMemoirs before us has 
copied from Doctor Preuss. They amount to this, 

35 that the house of Brandenburg had some ancient pre- 



30 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

tensions to Silesia, and had in the previous century- 
been compelled, by hard usage on the part of the 
Court of Vienna, to waive those pretensions. It is 
certain that, whoever might originally have been in 
the right, Prussia had submitted. Prince after prince 5 
of the house of Brandenburg had acquiesced in the 
existing arrangement. Nay, the Court of Berlin had 
recently been allied with that of Vienna, and had 
guaranteed the integrity of the Austrian states. Is 
it not perfectly clear that, if antiquated claims are to lo 
be set up against recent treaties and long possession, 
the world can never be at peace for a day? The laws 
of all nations have wisely established a time of limita- 
tion, after which titles, however illegitimate in their 
origin, cannot be questioned. It is felt by everybody, 15 
that to eject a person from his estate on the ground 
of some injustice committed in the time of the Tudors 
would produce all the evils which result from arbi- 
trary confiscation, and would make all property in- 
secure. It concerns the commonwealth — so runs the 20 
legal maxim — that there be an end of litigation. And 
surely this maxim is at least equally applicable to the 
great commonwealth of states; for in that common- 
wealth litigation means the devastation of provinces, 
the suspension of trade and industry, sieges like those 25 
of Badajoz and St. Sebastian, pitched fields like those 
of Eylau and Borodino. We hold that the transfer of 
Norway from Denmark to Sweden was an unjustifi- 
able proceeding; but Avould the king of Denmark 
be therefore justified in landing, without any new 30 
provocation, in Norway, and commencing military 
operations there? The king of Holland thinks, no 
doubt, that he was unjustly deprived of the Belgian 
provinces. Grant that it were so. Would he, there- 
fore, be justified in marching with an army on Brus- 35 



FEEDEKIC THE GREAT. 81 

sels? The case against Frederic was still stronger, 
inasmuch as the injustice of which he complained had 
been committed more than a century before. Nor 
must it be forgotten that he owed the highest per- 

) sonal obligations to the house of Austria. It may be 
doubted whether his life had not been preserved by 
the intercession of the prince whose daughter he was 
about to plunder. 

To do the King justice, he pretended to no more 

) virtue than he had. In manifestoes he might, for 
form's sake, insert some idle stories about his anti- 
quated claim on Silesia; but in his conversations and 
]\Iemoirs he took a very different tone. His own 
words are: ''Ambition, interest, the desire of mak- 

» ing people talk about me, carried the day; and I 
decided for war." 

Having resolved on his course, he acted with ability 
and vigour. It was impossible wholly to conceal his 
preparations ; for throughout the Prussian territories 

) i-egiments, guns, and baggage were in motion. The 
Austrian envoy at Berlin apprised his court of these 
facts, and expressed a suspicion of Frederic's de- 
signs; but the ministers of Maria Theresa refused to 
give credit to so black an imputation on a young 

) prince who was known chiefly by his high professions 
of integrity and philanthropy. *'We will not," they 
wrote, ''we cannot, believe it." 

In the mean time the Prussian forces had been 
assembled. Without any declaration of war, without 

} any demand for reparation, in the very act of pouring 
forth compliments and assurances of good-will, Fred- 
eric commenced hostilities. IMany thousands of his 
troops were actually in Silesia before the Queen of 
Hungary knew that he had set up any claim to any 

apart of her territories. At length he sent her a 



82 ?/IACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

message which could be regarded only as an insult. 
If she would but let him have Silesia, he would, he 
said, stand by her against any power which should try 
to deprive her of her other dominions; as if he was 
not already bound to stand by her, or as if his new 5 
promise could be of more value than the old one. 

It was the depth of winter. The cold was severe, 
and the roads heavy with mire. But the Prussians 
pressed on. Resistance was impossible. The Austrian 
army Avas then neither numerous nor efficient. The lo 
small portion of that army which lay in Silesia was 
unprepared for hostilities. Glogau was blockaded; 
Breslau opened its gates; Ohlau was evacuated. A 
few scattered garrisons still held out; but the whole 
open country was subjugated : no enemy ventured to 15 
encounter the King in the field; and, before the end 
of January, 1741, he returned to receive the congratu- 
lations of his subjects at Berlin. 

Had the Silesian question been merely a question 
between Frederic and ]\Iaria Theresa, it would be im- 2C 
possible to acquit the Prussian King of gross perfidy. 
But when we consider the effects which his policy pro- 
duced, and could not fail to produce, on the whole 
community of civilised nations, we are compelled to 
pronounce a condemnation still more severe. Till he 25 
began the war, it seemed possible, even probable, that 
the peace of the world would be preserved. The 
plunder of the great Austrian heritage was indeed a 
strong temptation ; and in more than one cabinet am- 
bitious schemes were already meditated. But the 30 
treaties by which the Pragmatic Sanction had been 
guaranteed were express and recent. To throw all 
Europe into confusion for a purpose clearly unjust, 
was no light matter. England was true to her engage- 
ments. The voice of Fleury had always been fors" 



FEEDEEIC THE GEEAT. 83 

peace. He had a conscience. He was now in extreme 
old age, and was unwilling, after a life which, when 
his situation was considered, must be pronounced 
singularly pure, to carry the fresh stain of a great 

5 crime before the tribunal of his God. Even the vain 
and unprincipled Belle-Isle, whose whole life was one 
wild day-dream of conquest and spoliation, felt that 
France, bound as she was by solemn stipulations, 
could not, without disgrace, make a direct attack on 

the Austrian dominions. Charles, Elector of Bavaria, 
pretended that he had a right to a large part of the 
inheritance which the Pragmatic Sanction gave to 
the Queen of Hungary; but he was not sufficiently 
powerful to move without support. It might, there- 

5 fore, not unreasonably be expected that, after a short 
period of restlessness, all the potentates of Christen- 
dom would acquiesce in the arrangements made by 
the late Emperor. But the selfish rapacity of the 
King of Prussia gave the signal to his neighbours. 

His example quieted their sense of shame. His suc- 
cess led them to underrate the difficulty of dismem- 
bering the Austrian monarchy. The whole world 
sprang to arms. On the head of Frederic is all the 
blood which was shed in a war which raged during 

5 many years and in every quarter of the globe, the 
blood of the column of Fontenoy, the blood of the 
mountaineers who were slaughtered at Culloden. The 
evils produced by his wickedness were felt in lands 
where the name of Prussia was unknown; and, in 

order that he might rob a neighbour whom he had 
promised to defend, black men fought on the coast of 
Coromandel, and red men scalped each other by the 
Great Lakes of North America. 

Silesia had been occupied without a battle; but the 

-) Austrian troops were advancing to the relief of the 



84 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

fortresses which still held out. In the spring Fred- 
eric rejoined his army. He had seen little of war, and 
had never commanded any great body of men in the 
field. It is not, therefore, strange that his first mili- 
tary operations showed little of that skill which, at a 5 
later period, was the admiration of Europe. What 
connoisseurs say of some pictures painted by Raphael 
in his youth, may be said of this campaign. It was 
in Frederic's early bad manner. Fortunately for 
him, the generals to whom he was opposed were men k 
of small capacity. The discipline of his own troops, 
particularly of the infantry, was unequalled in that 
age; and some able and experienced officers were at 
hand to assist him with their advice. Of these, the 
most distinguished was Field-Marshal Schwerin, a is 
brave adventurer of Pomeranian extraction, who had 
served half the governments in Europe, had borne 
the commissions of the States General of Holland and 
of the Duke of IMecklenburg, had fought under ]\Iarl- 
borough at Blenheim, and had been with Charles the 21 
Twelfth at Bender. 

Frederic's first battle was fought at Molwitz; and 
never did the career of a great commander open in a 
more inauspicious manner. His army was victorious. 
Not only, however, did he not establish his title to the a 
character of an able general ; but he was so unfortu- 
nate as to make it doubtful whether he possessed the 
vulgar courage of a soldier. The cavalry, which he 
commanded in person, was put to flight. Unaccus- 
tomed to the tumult and carnage of a field of battle, 3( 
he lost his self-possession, and listened too readily 
to those who urged him to save himself. His Eng- 
lish grey carried him many miles from the field, 
while Schwerin, though wounded in two places, man- 
fully upheld the day. The skill of the old Field- 3? 



f^KEDEKlC THE GEEAT. 85 

Marshal and the steadiness of the Prussian bat- 
talions prevailed; and the Austrian army was 
driven from the field with the loss of eight thou- 
sand men. 

5 The news was carried late at night to a mill in 
which the King had taken shelter. It gave him a bit- 
ter pang. He was successful ; but he owed his success 
to dispositions which others had made, and to the 
valour of men who had fought while he was flying. 

10 So unpromising was the first appearance of the great- 
est warrior of that age. 

The battle of Molwitz was the signal for a general 
explosion throughout Europe. Bavaria took up arms. 
France, not yet declaring herself a principal in the 

15 war, took part in it as an ally of Bavaria. The two 
great statesmen to whom mankind had owed many 
years of tranquillity, disappeared about this time 
from the scene, but not till they had both been guilty 
of the weakness of sacrificing their sense of justice 

20 and their love of peace to the vain hope of preserving 
their power. Fleury, sinking under age and infirm- 
ity, was borne down by the impetuosity of Belle-Isle. 
Walpole retired from the service of his ungrateful 
country to his woods and paintings at Houghton; and 

25 his power devolved on the daring and eccentric 
Carteret. As were the ministers, so were the nations. 
Thirty years during which Europe had, with few in- 
terruptions, enjoyed repose, had prepared the public 
mind for great military efforts. A new generation 

30 had grown up, which could not remember the siege of 
Turin or the slaughter of Malplaquet; which knew 
war by nothing but its trophies; and which, while it 
looked with pride on the tapestries at Blenheim, or 
the statue in the Place of Victories, little thou^jht by 

35 what privations, by what waste of private fortunes, 



SQ MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

by how many bitter tears, conquests must be pur- 
chased. 

For a time fortune seemed adverse to the Queen of 
Hungary. Frederic invaded Moravia. The French 
and Bavarians penetrated into Bohemia, and were 5 
there joined by the Saxons. Prague was taken. The 
Elector of Bavaria was raised by the suffrages of his 
colleagues to the Imperial throne, a throne which the 
practice of centuries had almost entitled the House 
of Austria to regard as a hereditary possession. 10 

Yet was the spirit of the haughty daughter of the 
Caesars unbroken. Hungary was still hers by an un- 
questionable title; and although her ancestors had 
found Hungary the most mutinous of all their king- 
doms, she resolved to trust herself to the fidelity of a 15 
people, rude indeed, turbulent, and impatient of op- 
pression, but brave, generous, and simple-hearted. 
In the midst of distress and peril she had given birth 
to a son, afterwards the Emperor Joseph the Second. 
Scarcely had she risen from her couch, when she 20 
hastened to Presburg. There, in the sight of an in- 
numerable multitude, she was crowned with the crown 
and robed with the robe of St. Stephen. No specta- 
tor could restrain his tears when the beautiful young 
mother, still weak from child-bearing, rode, after the 25 
fashion of her fathers, up the IMount of Defiance, un- 
sheathed the ancient sword of state, shook it towards 
north and south, east and west, and with a glow on 
her pale face challenged the four corners of the 
world to dispute her rights and those of her boy. At 30 
the first sitting of the Diet she appeared clad in deep 
mourning for her father, and in pathetic and digni- 
fied words implored her people to support her just 
cause. ^Magnates and deputies sprang up, half drew 
their sabres, and with eager voices vowed to stand by 35 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. gy 

her with their lives and fortunes. Till then her firm- 
ness had never once forsaken her before the public 
eye ; but at that shout she sank down upon her throne, 
and wept aloud. Still more touching was the sight 
when, a few days later, she came before the estates 
of her realm, and held up before them the little Arch- 
duke in her arms. Then it was that the enthusiasm 
of Hungary broke forth into that war-cry which soon 
resounded throughout Europe, ''Let us die for our 
King, Maria Theresa!" 

In the mean time, Frederic was meditating a change 
of policy. He had no wish to raise France to supreme 
power on the Continent, at the expense of the house 
of Hapsburg. His first object was to rob the Queen 
of Hungary. His second object was that, if possible, 
nobody should rob her but himself. He had entered 
into engagements with the powers leagued against 
Austria ; but these engagements were in his estima- 
tion of no more force than the guarantee formerly 
given to the Pragmatic Sanction. His plan now was 
to secure his share of the plunder by betraying his 
accomplices. Maria Theresa was little inclined to 
listen to any such compromise; but the English gov- 
ernment represented to her so strongly the necessity 
of buying off Frederic, that she agreed to negotiate. 
The negotiation would not, however, have ended in a 
treaty, had not the arms of Frederic been crowned 
with a second victory. Prince Charles of Loraine, 
brother-in-law to ]\Iaria Theresa, a bold and active, 
though unfortunate general, gave battle to the Prus- 
sians at Chotusitz, and was defeated. The King was 
still only a learner of the military art. He acknowl- 
edged, at a later period, that his success on this occa- 
sion was to be attributed, not at all to his own gen- 
eralship, but solely to the valour and steadiness of 



88 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

his troops. He completely effaced, however, by his 
personal courage and energy, the stain which Mol- 
witz had left on his reputation. 

A peace, concluded under the English mediation, 
was the fruit of this battle. Maria Theresa ceded 5 
Silesia: Frederic abandoned his allies: Saxony fol- 
lowed his example ; and the Queen was left at liberty 
to turn her whole force against France and Bavaria. 
She was everywhere triumphant. The French were 
compelled to evacuate Bohemia, and with difficulty ef- lo 
fected their escape. The whole line of their retreat 
might be tracked by the corpses of thousands who had 
died of cold, fatigue and hunger. Many of those who 
reached their country carried with them the seeds of 
death. Bavaria was overrun by bands of ferocious is 
warriors from that bloody debatable land which lies 
on the frontier between Christendom and Islam. The 
terrible names of the Pandoor, the Croat, and the 
Hussar, then first became familiar to western Europe. 
The unfortunate Charles of Bavaria, vanquished byzc 
Austria, betrayed by Prussia, driven from his heredi- 
tary states, and neglected by his allies, was hurried by 
shame and remorse to an untimely end. An English 
army appeared in the heart of Germany, and defeated 
the French at Dettingen. The Austrian captains al-21 
ready began to talk of completing the work of Marl- 
borough and Eugene, and of compelling France to 
relinquish Alsace and the Three Bishoprics. 

The Court of Versailles, in this peril, looked to 
Frederic for help. He had been guilty of two great 3( 
treasons: perhaps he might be induced to commit a 
third. The Duchess of Chateauroux then held the 
chief influence over the feeble Louis. She determined 
to send an agent to Berlin ; and Voltaire was selected 
for the mission. He eagerly undertook the task ; for, 31 



FREDEEIC THE GREAT. 39 

while his literary fame filled all Europe, he was 
troubled with a childish craving for political distinc- 
tion. He was vain, and not without reason, of his 
address, and of his insinuating eloquence; and he 

5 flattered himself that he possessed boundless influ- 
ence over the King of Prussia. The truth was that 
he knew, as yet, only one corner of Frederic's charac- 
ter. He was well acquainted with all the petty 
vanities and affectations of the poetaster ; but was not 

10 aware that these foibles were united with all the 
talents and vices which lead to success in active life, 
and that the unlucky versifier who pestered him with 
reams of middling Alexandrines, was the most vigi- 
lant, suspicious, and severe of politicians. 

15 Voltaire was received with every mark of respect 
and friendship, was lodged in the palace, and had a 
seat daily at the royal table. The negotiation was of 
an extraordinary description. Nothing can be con- 
ceived more whimsical than the conferences which 

20 took place between the first literary man and the first 
practical man of the age, whom a strange weakness 
had induced to exchange their parts. The great poet 
would talk of nothing but treaties and guarantees, 
and the great King of nothing but metaphors and 

25 rhymes. On one occasion Voltaire put into his Maj- 
esty's hands a paper on the state of Europe, and 
received it back with verses scrawled on the margin. 
In secret they both laughed at each other. Voltaire 
did not spare the King's poems; and the King has 

30 left on record his opinion of Voltaire's diplomacy. 
''He had no credentials," says Frederic, "and the 
whole mission was a joke, a mere farce." 

But what the influence of Voltaire could not effect, 
the rapid progress of the Austrian arms effected. If 

35 it should be in the power of ]\Iaria Theresa and George 



90 MACAULAY'8 ESSAYS. 

the Second, to dictate terms of peace to France, what 
chance was there that Prussia would long retain Si- 
lesia? Frederic's conscience told him that he had 
acted perfidiously and inhumanly towards the Queen 
of Hungary. That her resentment was strong she 5 
had given ample proof ; and of her respect for treaties 
he judged by his own. Guarantees, he said, were 
mere filigree, pretty to look at, but too brittle to bear 
the slightest pressure. He thought it his safest course 
to ally himself closely to France, and again to attack ic 
the Empress Queen. Accordingly, in the autumn of 
1744, without notice, without any decent pretext, he 
recommenced hostilities, marched through the elect- 
orate of Saxony without troubling himself about the 
permission of the Elector, invaded Bohemia, took 15 
Prague, and even menaced Vienna. 

It was now that, for the first time, he experienced 
the inconstancy of fortune. An Austrian army under 
Charles of Loraine threatened his communications 
with Silesia. Saxony was all in arms behind him. He 20 
found it necessary to save himself by a retreat. He 
afterwards owned that his failure was the natural 
effect of his own blunders. No general, he said, had 
ever committed greater faults. It must be added, 
that to the reverses of this campaign he always 25 
ascribed his subsequent successes. It was in the midst 
of difficulty and disgrace that he caught the first 
clear glimpse of the principles of the military art. 

The memorable year 1745 followed. The war . 
raged by sea and land, in Italy, in Grermany, and in 30 
Flanders; and even England, after many years of 
profound internal quiet, saw, for the last time, hostile 
armies set in battle array against each other. This 
year is memorable in the life of Frederic, as the date 
at which his novitiate in the art of war mav be said 35 



FKEDERIC THE GREAT. 91 

to have terminated. There have been great captains 
whose precocious and self-taught military skill re- 
sembled intuition. Conde, Clive, and Napoleon are 
examples. But Frederic was not one of these brilliant 
5 portents. His proficiency ^in military science was sim- 
ply the proficiency which a man of vigorous faculties 
makes in any science to which he applies his mind 
with earnestness and industry. It was at Hohen- 
friedberg that he first proved how much he had 

10 profited by his errors, and by their consequences. His 
victory on that day was chiefly due to his skilful dis- 
positions, and convinced Europe that the prince who. 
a few years before, had stood aghast in the rout of 
]\Iolwitz, had attained in the military art a mastery 

15 equalled by none of his contemporaries, or equalled 
by Saxe alone. The victory of Hohenfriedberg was 
speedily followed by that of Sorr. 

In the meantime, the arms of France had been 
victorious in the Low Countries. Frederic had no 

20 longer reason to fear that Maria Theresa would be 
able to give law to Europe, and he began to meditate 
a fourth breach of his engagements. The court of 
Versailles was alarmed and mortified. A letter of 
earnest expostulation, in the handwriting of Louis, 

25 was sent to Berlin ; but in vain. In the autumn of 
1745, Frederic made peace with England and, before 
the close of the year, with Austria also. The preten- 
sions of Charles of Bavaria could present no obstacle 
to an accommodation. That unhappy prince was no 

30 more ; and Francis of Loraine, the husband of ]Maria 
Theresa, was raised, with the general assent of the 
Germanic body, to the Imperial throne. 

Prussia was again at peace ; but the European war 
lasted till, in the year 1748, it was terminated by the 

35 treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. Of all the powers that had 



92 ]\,[ACAULAY 'S ESSAYS. 

taken part in it, the only gainer was Frederic. Not 
only had he added to his patrimony the fine province 
of Silesia: he had, by his unprincipled dexterity, 
succeeded so well in alternately depressing the scale 
of Austria and that of France, that he was generally 5 
regarded as holding the balance of Europe, a high 
dignity for one who ranked lowest among kings, and 
whose great-grandfather had been no more than a 
jMargrave. By the public, the King of Prussia was 
considered as a politician destitute alike of morality lo 
and decency, insatiably rapacious, and shamelessly 
false ; nor was the public much in the wrong. He was 
at the same time allowed to be a man of parts, a rising 
general, a shrewd negotiator and administrator. 
Those qualities wherein he surpassed all mankind, 15 
were as yet unknown to others or to himself ; for they 
were qualities which shine out only on a dark ground. 
His career had hitherto, with little interruption, been 
prosperous ; and it was only in adversity, in adversity 
which seemed without hope or resource, in adversity 20 
which would have overwhelmed even men celebrated 
for strength of mind, that his real greatness could be 
shown. 

He had, from the commencement of his reign, 
applied himself to public business after a fashion un- 25 
known among kings. Louis the Fourteenth, indeed, 
had been his own prime minister, and had exercised 
a general superintendence over all the departments of 
the government ; but this was not sufficient for Fred- 
eric. He was not content with being his own prime 30 
minister: he would be his own sole minister. Under 
him there was no room, not merely for a Richelieu or 
a ]\Iazarin, but for a Colbert, a Louvois, or a Torcy. 
A love of labour for its own sake, a restless and in- 
satiable longing to dictate, to intermeddle, to make 33 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 93 

his power felt, a profound scorn and distrust ot his 
fellow-creatures, made him unwilling to ask counsel, to 
confide important secrets, to delegate ample powers. 
The highest functionaries under his government were 
i mere clerks, and were not so much trusted by him as 
valuable clerks are often trusted by the heads of de- 
partments. He was his own treasurer, his own com- 
mander-in-chief, his own intendant of public works, 
his own minister for trade and justice, for home 
I affairs and foreign affairs, his own master of the 
horse, steward, and chamberlain. Matters of which 
no chief of an office in any other government would 
ever hear were, in this singular monarchy, decided 
by the King in person. If a traveller wished for a 
good place to see a review, he had to write to Frederic, 
and received next day from a royal messenger Fred- 
eric's answer signed by Frederic's own hand. This 
was an extravagant, a morbid activity. The public 
business would assuredly have been better done if 
each department had been put under a man of talents 
and integrity, and if the King had contented himself 
with a general control. In this manner the advan- 
tages which belong to unity of design, and the ad- 
vantages which belong to the division of labour would 
have been to a great extent combined. But such a 
system would not have suited the peculiar temper of 
Frederic. He could tolerate no will, no reason, in 
the state, save his own. He wished for no abler assist- 
ance than that of penmen who had just understand- 
ing enough to translate and transcribe, to make out 
his scrawls, and to put his concise Yes and No into 
an official form. Of the higher intellectual faculties, 
there is as much in a copying machine, or a litho- 
graphic press, as he required from a secretary of the 
, cabinet. 



94 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

His own exertions were such as were hardly to be 
expected from a human body or a human mind. At 
Potsdam, his ordinary residence, he rose at three in 
summer and four in winter. A page soon appeared, 
with a large basket full of all the letters which had 5 
arrived for the King by the last courier, despatches 
from ambassadors, reports from officers of revenue, 
plans of buildings, proposals for draining marshes, 
complaints from persons who thought themselves ag- 
grieved, applications from persons who wanted titles, lo 
military commissions, and civil situations. He exam- 
ined the seals with a keen eye; for he was never for 
a moment free from the suspicion that some fraud 
might be practised on him. Then he read the letters, 
divided them into several packets, and signified his 15 
pleasure, generally by a mark, often by two or three 
words, now and then by some cutting epigram. By 
eight he had generally finished this part of his task. 
The adjutant-general was then in attendance, and 
received instructions for the day as to all the military 20 
arrangements of the kingdom. Then the King went 
to review his guards, not as kings ordinarily review 
their guards, but with the minute attention and se- 
verity of an old drill-sergeant. In the mean time the 
four cabinet secretaries had been employed in answer- 25 
ing the letters on which the King had that morning 
signified his will. These unhappy men were forced 
to work all the year round like negro slaves in the 
time of the sugar-crop. They never had a holiday. 
They never knew what it was to dine. It was neces- 30 
sary that, before they stirred, they should finish the 
whole of their work. The King, always on his guard 
against treachery, took from the heap a handful of 
letters at random, and looked into them to see whether 
his instructions had been exactly followed. This was 35 



FEEDEKIC THE GREAT. 95 

no bad security against foul play on the part of the 
secretaries; for if one of them were detected in a 
trick, he might think himself fortunate if he escaped 
with five years of imprisonment in a dungeon. Fred- 

5 eric then signed the replies, and all were sent off the 
same evening. 

The general principles on which this strange gov- 
ernment was conducted, deserve attention. The policy 
of Frederic was essentially the same as his father *s; 

10 but Frederic, while he carried that policy to lengths 
to which his father never thought of carrying it, 
cleared it at the same time from the absurdities with 
which his father had encumbered it. The King's 
first object was to have a great, efficient, and well- 

15 trained army. He had a kingdom which in extent 
and population was hardly in the second rank of Eu- 
ropean powers; and yet he aspired to a place not 
inferior to that of the sovereigns of England, France, 
and Austria. For that end it was necessary that 

20 Prussia should be all sting. Louis the Fifteenth, with 
five times as many subjects as Frederic, and more than 
five times as large a revenue, had not a more formid- 
able army. The proportion which the soldiers in 
Prussia bore to the people seems hardly credible. Of 

25 the males in the vigour of life, a seventh part were 
probably under arms; and this great force had, by 
drilling, by reviewing, and by the unsparing use of 
cane and scourge, been taught to perform all evolu- 
tions with a rapidity and a precision which would 

30 have astonished Villars or Eugene. The elevated feel- 
ings which are necessary to the best kind of army 
were then wanting to the Prussian service. In those 
ranks were not found the religious and political en- 
thusiasm which inspired the pikemen of Cromwell, 

35 the patriotic ardour, the thirst of glory, the devo- 



96 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

tion to a great leader, which inflamed the Old Guard 
of Napoleon. But in all the mechanical parts of the 
military calling, the Prussians were as superior to 
the English and French troops of that day as the 
English and French troops to a rustic militia. 5 

Though the pay of the Prussian soldier was small, 
though every rixdollar of extraordinary charge was 
scrutinised by Frederic with a vigilance and suspicion 
such as Mr. Joseph Hume never brought to the exam- 
ination of an army estimate, the expense of such anio 
establishment was, for the means of the country, enor- 
mous. In order that it might not be utterly ruinous, 
it was necessary that every other expense should be 
cut down to the lowest possible point. Accordingly 
Frederic, though his dominions bordered on the sea, 15 
had no navy. He neither had nor wished to have col- 
onies. His judges, his fiscal officers, were meanly 
paid. His ministers at foreign courts walked on foot, 
or drove shabby old carriages till the axletrees gave 
way. Even to his highest diplomatic agents, who re- 20 
sided at London and Paris, he allowed less than a 
thousand pounds sterling a year. The royal house- 
hold was managed with a frugality unusual in the 
establishments of opulent subjects, unexampled in 
any other palace. The King loved good eating and 25 
drinking, and during a great part of his life took 
pleasure in seeing his table surrounded by guests; 
yet the whole charge of his kitchen was brought 
within the sum of two thousand pounds sterling a 
year. He examined every extraordinary item with a 30 
care which might be thought to suit the mistress of a 
boarding house better than a great prince. When 
more than four rixdollars were asked of him for a 
hundred oysters, he stormed as if he had heard that 
one of his generals had sold a fortress to the Empress 85 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 97 

Queen. Not a bottle of Champagne was uncorked 
without his express order. The game of the royal 
parks and forests, a serious head of expenditure in 
most kingdoms, was to him a source of profit. The 

5 whole was farmed out ; and though the farmers were 
almost ruined by their contract, the King would grant 
them no remission. His wardrobe consisted of one 
fine gala dress, which lasted him all his life; of two 
or three old coats fit for Monmouth Street, of yellow 

10 waistcoats soiled with snuff, and of huge boots em- 
browned by time. One taste alone sometimes allured 
him beyond the limits of parsimony, nay, even be- 
yond the limits of prudence, the taste for building. 
In all other things his economy was such as we might 

15 call by a harsher name, if we did not reflect that his 
funds were drawn from a heavily taxed people, and 
that it was impossible for him, without excessive 
tyranny, to keep up at once a formidable army and a 
splendid court. 

20 Considered as an administrator, Frederic had un- 
doubtedly many titles to praise. Order was strictly 
maintained throughout his dominions. Property was 
secure. A great liberty of speaking and of writing 
was allowed. Confident in the irresistible strength 

25 derived from a great army, the King looked down 
on malcontents and libellers with a wise disdain ; and 
gave little encouragement to spies and informers. 
When he was told of the disaffection of one of his 
subjects, he merely asked, * ' How many thousand men 

30 can he bring into the field ? " He once saw a crowd 
staring at something on a wall. He rode up, and 
found that the object of curiosity was a scurrilous 
placard against himself. The placard had been posted 
up so high that it was not easy to read it. Frederic 

35 ordered his attendants to take it down and put it 



98 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

lower. **My people and I/' he said, ''have come to 
an agreement which satisfies us both. They are to 
say what they please, and I am to do what I please. ' ' 
No person would have dared to publish in London 
satires on George the Second approaching to the 5 
atrocity of those satires on Frederic, which the book- 
sellers at Berlin sold with impunity. One bookseller 
sent to the palace a copy of the most stinging lam- 
poon that perhaps was ever written in the world, the 
Memoirs of Voltaire, published by Beaumarchais, and lo 
asked for his majesty's orders. ''Do not advertise it 
in an offensive manner,'' said the King, "but sell it 
by all means. I hope it will pay you well." Even 
among statesmen accustomed to the license of a free 
press, such steadfastness of mind as this is not very 15 
common. 

It is due also to the memory of Frederic to say that 
he earnestly laboured to secure to his people the great 
blessing of cheap and speedy justice. He was one of 
the first rulers who abolished the cruel and absurd 20 
practice of torture. No sentence of death, pronounced 
by the ordinary tribunals, was executed without his 
sanction ; and his sanction, except in cases of murder, 
was rarely given. Towards his troops he acted in a 
very different manner. Military offences were pun- 25 
ished with such barbarous scourging that to be shot 
was considered by the Prussian soldier as a secondary 
punishment. Indeed, the principle which pervaded 
Frederic's whole policy was this, that the more se- 
verely the army is governed, the safer it is to treat so 
the rest of the community v/ith lenity. 

Eeligious persecution was unknown under his gov- 
ernment, unless some foolish and unjust restrictions 
which lay upon the Jews may be regarded as forming 
an exception. His policy with respect to the Cath-35 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 99 

olics of Silesia presented an honourable contrast to the 
policy which, under very similar circumstances, Eng- 
land long followed with respect to the Catholics of 
Ireland. Every form of religion and irreligion found 

5 an asylum in his states. The scoffer whom the parlia- 
ments of France had sentenced to a cruel death, was 
consoled by a commission in the Prussian service. The 
Jesuit who could show his face nowhere else, who in 
Britain was still subject to penal laws, who was pro- 

10 scribed by France, Spain, Portugal, and Naples, who 
had been given up even by the Vatican, found safety 
and the means of subsistence in the Prussian domin- 
ions. 

Most of the vices of Frederic's administration re- 

15 solve themselves into one vice, the spirit of meddling. 
The indefatigable activity of his intellect, his dicta- 
torial temper, his military habits, all inclined him to 
this great fault. He drilled his people as he drilled 
his grenadiers. Capital and industry were diverted 

20 from their natural direction by a crowd of prepos- 
terous regulations. There was a monopoly of coffee, 
a monopoly of tobacco, a monopoly of refined sugar. 
The public money, of which the King was generally 
so sparing, was lavishly spent in ploughing bogs, in 

25 planting mulberry-trees amidst the sand, in bringing 
sheep from Spain to improve the Saxon wool, in be- 
stowing prizes for fine yarn, in building manufac- 
tories of porcelain, manufactories of carpets, manu- 
factories of hardware, manufactories of lace. Neither 

30 the experience of other rulers, nor his own, could 
ever teach him that something more than an edict 
and a grant of public money was required to create a 
Lyons, a Brussels, or a Birmingham. 

For his commercial policy, however, there was some 

35 excuse. He had on his side illustrious examples and 



100 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

popular prejudice. Grievously as he erred, lie erred 
in company with his age. In other departments his 
meddling was altogether without apology. He inter- 
fered with the course of justice as well as with the 
course of trade ; and set up his own crude notions of 5 
equity against the law as expounded by the unanimous 
voice of the gravest magistrates. It never occurred 
to him that men whose lives were passed in adjudi- 
cating on questions of civil right were more likely to 
form correct opinions on such questions than a prince lo 
whose attention was divided among a thousand ob- 
jects, and who had never read a law-book through. 
The resistance opposed to him by the tribunals in- 
flamed him to fury. He reviled his Chancellor. He 
kicked the shins of his Judges. He did not, it is true, 15 
intend to act unjustly. He firmly believed that he 
was doing right, and defending the cause of the poor 
against the wealthy. Yet this well-meant meddling 
probably did far more harm than all the explosions 
of his evil passions during the whole of his long 20 
reign. We could make shift to live under a de- 
bauchee or a tyrant; but to be ruled by a busy-body 
is more than human nature can bear. 

The same passion for directing and regulating ap- 
peared in every part of the King's policy. Every 25 
lad of a certain station in life was forced to go to 
certain schools within the Prussian dominions. If a 
young Prussian repaired, though but for a few 
weeks, to Leyden or Gottingen for the purpose of 
study, the offense was punished with civil disabili-30 
ties, and sometimes with the confiscation of prop- 
erty. Nobody was to travel without the royal per- 
mission. If the permission were granted, the pocket- 
money of the tourist was fixed by royal ordinance. 
A merchant miprht take with him two hundred and 35 



FREDEEIC THE GREAT. 101 

fifty rixdollars in gold, a noble was allowed to take 
four hundred; for it may be observed, in passing, 
that Frederic studiously kept up the old distinction 
between the nobles and the community. In specu- 

5 lation, he was a French philosopher, but in action, 
a German prince. He talked and wrote about the 
privileges of blood in the style of Sieyes; but in 
practice no chapter in the empire looked with a 
keener eye to genealogies and quarterings. 

10 Such was Frederic the Ruler. But there was an- 
other Frederic, the Frederic of Rheinsberg, the fid- 
dler and flute-player, the poetaster and metaphysician. 
Amidst the cares of state the King had retained his 
passion for music, for reading, for writing, for liter- 
is ary society. To these amusements he devoted all the 
time that he could snatch from the business of war 
and government; and perhaps more light is thrown 
on his character by what passed during his hours of 
relaxation, than by his battles or his laws. 

20 It was the just boast of Schiller that, in his coun- 
try, no Augustus, no Lorenzo, had watched over the 
infancy of poetry. The rich and energetic language 
of Luther, driven by the Latin from the schools of 
pedants, and by the French from the palaces of 

25 kings, had taken refuge among the people. Of the 
powers of that language Frederic had no notion. He 
generally spoke of it, and of those who used it, with 
the contempt of ignorance. His library consisted of 
French books; at his table nothing was heard but 

30 French conversation. The associates of his hours 
of relaxation were, for the most part, foreigners. 
Britain furnished to the royal circle two distin- 
guished men, born in the highest rank, and driven 
])y civil dissensions from the land to which, under 

35 happier circumstances, their talents and virtues 



102 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

might have been a source of strength and glory. 
George Keith, Earl Marischal of Scotland, had taken 
arms for the house of Stuart in 1715 ; and his younger 
brother, James, then only seventeen years old, had 
fought gallantly by his side. When all was lost they 5 
retired together to the Continent, roved from country 
to country, served under various standards, and so 
bore themselves as to win the respect and good-will 
of many who had no love for the Jacobite cause. 
Their long wanderings terminated at Potsdam; norio 
had Frederic any associates who deserved or obtained 
so large a share of his esteem. They were not only 
accomplished men, but nobles and warriors, capable 
of serving him in war and diplomacy, as well as of 
amusing him at supper. Alone of all his companions 15 
they appear never to have had reason to complain 
of his demeanour towards them. Some of those who 
knew the palace best pronounced that Lord Mari- 
schal was the only human being whom Frederic ever 
really loved. 20 

Italy sent to the parties at Potsdam the ingenious 
and amiable Algarotti, and Bastiani, the most crafty, 
cautious, and servile of Abbes. But the greater part 
of the society which Frederic had assembled round 
him, was drawn from France. Maupertuis had 25 
acquired some celebrity by the journey which he had 
made to Lapland, for the purpose of ascertaining, 
by actual measurement, the shape of our planet. He 
was placed in the chair of the Academy of Berlin, a 
humble imitation of the renowned academy of Paris. 30 
Baculard D'Arnaud, a young poet, who was thought 
to have given promise of great things, had been in- 
duced to quit his country, and to reside at the Prus- 
sian Court. The Marquess D'Argens was among the 
King's favourite companions, on account, as it should 35 



FKEDEEIC THE GREAT. 103 

seem, of the strong opposition between their charac- 
ters. The parts of D'Argens were good, and his 
manners those of a finished French gentleman; but 
his whole soul was dissolved in sloth, timidity, and 

5 self-indulgence. His was one of that abject class of 
minds which are superstitious without being re- 
ligious. Hating Christianity with a rancour which 
made him incapable of rational inquiry, unable to 
see in the harmony and beauty of the universe the 

traces of divine power and wisdom, he was the slave 
of dreams and omens, would not sit down to a table 
with thirteen in company, turned pale if the salt 
fell towards him, begged his guests not to cross their 
knives and forks on their plates, and would not for 

5 the world commence a journey on Friday. His health 
was a subject of constant anxiety to him. Whenever 
his head ached or his pulse beat quick, his dastardly 
fears and effeminate precautions were the jest of all 
Berlin. All this suited the King's purpose admir- 

ably. He wanted somebody by whom he might be 
amused, and whom he might despise. When he 
wished to pass half an hour in easy polished conver- 
sation, D'Argens was an excellent companion; when 
he wanted to vent his spleen and contempt, D'Argens 

:5was an excellent butt. 

With these associates, and others of the same class, 
Frederic loved to spend the time which he could steal 
from public cares. He wished his supper-parties to 
be gay and easy. He invited his guests to lay aside 

50 all restraint, and to forget that he was at the head of 
a hundred and sixty thousand soldiers, and was ab- 
solute master of the life and liberty of all who sat at 
meat with him. There was, therefore, at these par- 
ties the outward show of ease. The wit and learning 

j5of the company were ostentatiously displayed. The 



104 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

discussions on history and literature were often 
highly interesting. But the absurdity of all the re- 
ligion known among men was the chief topic of con- 
versation; and the audacity with which doctrines 
and names venerated throughout Christendom were 5 
treated on these occasions startled even persons 
accustomed to the society of French and English 
freethinkers. Real liberty, however, or real affection, 
was in this brilliant society not to be found. Abso- 
lute kings seldom have friends ; and Frederic 's faults n 
were such as, even where perfect equality exists, 
make friendship exceedingly precarious. He had in- 
deed many qualities, which, on a first acquaintance, 
were captivating. His conversation was lively; his 
manners, to those whom he desired to please, were lE 
even caressing. No man could flatter with more deli- 
cacy. No man succeeded more completely in inspir- 
ing those who approached him with vague hopes of 
some great advantage from his kindness. But under 
this fair exterior he was a tyrant, suspicious, disdain- 2( 
ful, and malevolent. He had one taste which may be 
pardoned in a boy, but which, when habitually and 
deliberately indulged by a man of mature age and 
strong understanding, is almost invariably the sign 
of a bad heart, a taste for severe practical jokes. If 2; 
a courtier was fond of dress, oil was flung over his 
richest suit. If he was fond of money, some prank 
was invented to make him disburse more than he 
could spare. If he was hypochondriacal, he was made 
to believe that he had the dropsy. If he had 31 
particularly set his heart on visiting a place, a 
letter was forged to frighten him from going 
thither. These things, it may be said, are trifles. 
They are so; but they are indications, not to be 
mistaken, of a nature to which the sight of human a 



FEEDERIC THE GEEAT. 105 

suffering and human degradation is an agreeable 
excitement. 

Frederic had a keen eye for the foibles of others, 
and loved to communicate his discoveries. He had 

5 some talent for sarcasm, and considerable skill in de- 
tecting the sore places where sarcasm would be most 
acutely felt. His vanity, as well as his malignity, 
found gratification in the vexation and confusion of 
those who smarted under his caustic jests. Yet in 

10 truth his success on these occasions belonged quite as 
much to the king as to the wit. We read that Corn- 
modus descended, sword in hand, into the arena 
against a wretched gladiator, armed only with a foil 
of lead, and, after shedding the blood of the helpless 

15 victim, struck medals to commemorate the inglorious 
victory. The triumphs of Frederic in the war of 
repartee were of much the same kind. How to deal 
with him was the most puzzling of questions. To 
appear constrained in his presence was to disobey his 

20 commands, and to spoil his amusement. Yet if his 
associates were enticed by his graciousness to indulge 
in the familiarity of a cordial intimacy, he was cer- 
tain to make them repent of their presumption by 
some cruel humiliation. To resent his affronts were 

25 perilous; yet not to resent them was to deserve and 
to invite them. In his view, those who mutinied were 
insolent and ungrateful; those who submitted were 
curs made to receive bones and kickings with the 
same fawning patience. It is, indeed, difficult to 

30 conceive how any thing short of the rage of hunger 
should have induced men to bear the misery of being 
the associates of the Great King. It was no lucrative 
post. His i\Iajesty was as severe and economical in 
his friendships as in the other charges of his estab- 

35 lishment, and as unlikely to give a rixdollar too much 



106 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

for his guests as for his dinners. The sum which he 
allowed to a poet or a philosopher was the very small- 
est sum for which such poet or philosopher could be 
induced to sell himself into slavery; and the bonds- 
man might think himself fortunate if what had been 5 
so grudgingly given was not, after years of suffering, 
rudely and arbitrarily withdrawn. 

Potsdam was, in truth, what it was called by one of 
its most illustrious inmates, the Palace of Alcina. At 
the first glance it seemed to be a delightful spot, where 10 
every intellectual and physical enjoyment awaited the 
happy adventurer. Every new comer was received 
with eager hospitality, intoxicated with flattery, en- 
couraged to expect prosperity and greatness. It was 
in vain that a long succession of favourites who had 15 
entered that abode with delight and hope, and who, 
after a short term of delusive happiness, had been 
doomed to expiate their folly by years of wretched- 
ness and degradation, raised their voices to warn the 
aspirant who approached the charmed threshold. 20 
Some had wisdom enough to discover the truth early, 
and spirit enough to fly without looking back; others 
lingered on to a cheerless and unhonoured old age. 
We have no hesitation in saying that the poorest 
author of that time m London, sleeping on a bulk, 25 
dining in a cellar, with a cravat of paper, and a 
skewer for a shirt-pin, was a happier man than any 
of the literary inmates of Frederic's court. 

But of all who entered the enchanted garden in the 
inebriation of delight, and quitted it in agonies of 3c 
rage and shame, the most remarkable was Voltaire. 
Many circumstances had made him desirous of find- 
ing a home at a distance from his country. His fame 
had raised him up enemies. His sensibility gave 
them a formidable advantage over him. They were, 3s 



FEEDERIC THE GEEAT. 107 

indeed, contemptible assailants. Of all that they 
wrote against him, nothing has survived except what 
he has himself preserved. But the constitution of his 
mind resembled the constitution of those bodies in 

5 which the slightest scratch of a bramble, or the bite 
of a gnat, never fails to fester. Though his reputa- 
tion was rather raised than lowered by the abuse of 
such writers as Freron and Desfontaines, though the 
vengeance which he took on Freron and Desfon- 

D taines was such, that scourging, branding, pillorying, 
would have been a trifle to it, there is reason to be- 
lieve that they gave him far more pain that he ever 
gave them. Though he enjoyed during his own life- 
time the reputation of a classic, though he was ex- 

5 tolled by his contemporaries above all poets, phil- 
osophers, and historians, though his works were read 
with as much delight and admiration at Moscow and 
Westminster, at Florence and Stockholm, as at Paris 
itself, he was yet tormented by that restless jealousy 

which should seem to belong only to minds burning 
with the desire of fame, and yet conscious of impo- 
tence. To men of letters who could by no possibility 
be his rivals, he was, if they behaved well to him, not 
merely just, not merely courteous, but often a hearty 

:5 friend and a munificent benefactor. But to every 
writer who rose to a celebrity approaching his own, 
he became either a disguised or an avowed enemy. 
He slily depreciated Montesquieu and Buffon. He 
publicly, and with violent outrage, made war on 

iO Rousseau. Nor had he the art of hiding his feelings 
under the semblance of good humour or of contempt. 
With all his great talents, and all his long experi- 
ence of the world, he had no more self-command than 
a petted child or a hysterical woman. Whenever he 

35 was mortified, he exhausted the whole rhetoric of 



108 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

anger and sorrow to express his mortification. His 
torrents of bitter words, his stamping and cursing, 
his grimaces and his tears of rage, were a rich feast 
to those abject natures, whose delight is in the agonies 
of powerful spirits and in the abasement of immortal 5 
names. These creatures had now found out a way 
of galling him to the very quick. In one walk, at 
least, it had been admitted by envy itself that he was 
without a living competitor. Since Racine had been 
laid among the great men whose dust made the holyi( 
precinct of Port Roj^al holier, no tragic poet had ap- 
peared who could contest the palm with the author 
Zaire, of Alzire, and of Merope. At length a rival 
was announced. Old Crebillon, who, many years be- 
fore, had obtained some theatrical success, and whou 
had long been forgotten, came forth from his garret 
in one of the meanest lanes near the Rue St. An- 
toine, and was welcomed by the acclamations of en- 
vious men of letters, and of a capricious populace. A 
thing called Catiline, which he had written in his re- 2( 
tirement, was acted with boundless applause. Of this 
execrable piece it is sufficient to say, that the plot 
turns on a love affair, caried on in all the forms of 
Scudery, between Catiline, whose confidant is the 
Praetor Lentulus, and Tullia, the daughter of Cicero. 21 
The theatre resounded with acclamations. The king 
pensioned the successful poet; and the coffee-houses 
pronounced that Voltaire was a clever man, but that 
the real tragic inspiration, the celestial fire which had 
glowed in Corneille and Racine, was to be found in 31 
Crebillon alone. 

The blow went to Voltaire's heart. Had his wis- 
dom and fortitude been in proportion to the fertility 
of his intellect, and to the brilliancy of his wit, he 
would have seen that it was out of the power of alls? 



FEEDEEIC THE GREAT. 109 

the puffers and detractors in Europe to put Catiline 
above Zaire; but he had none of the magnanimous 
patience with which Milton and Bentley left their 
claims to the unerring judgment of time. He eagerly 

5 engaged in an undignified competition with Crebillon, 
and produced a series of plays on the same subjects 
which his rival had treated. These pieces were coolly 
received. Angry with the court, angry with the cap- 
ital, Voltaire began to find pleasure in the prospect 

ioof exile. His attachment for Madame du Chatelet 
long prevented him from executing his purpose. Her 
death set him at liberty; and he determined to take 
refuge at Berlin. 

To Berlin he was invited by a series of letters, 

.5 couched in terms of the most enthusiastic friendship 
and admiration. For once the rigid parsimony of 
Frederic seemed to have relaxed. Orders, honourable 
offices, a liberal pension, a well-served table, stately 
apartments under a royal roof, were offered in return 

!0 for the pleasure and honour which were expected 
from the society of the first wit of the age. A thou- 
sand louis were remitted for the charges of the jour- 
ney. No ambassador setting out from Berlin for a 
court of the first rank, had ever been more amply 

15 supplied. But Voltaire was not satisfied. At a later 
period, when he possessed an ample fortune, he was 
one of the most liberal of men ; but till his means had 
become equal to his wishes, his greediness for lucre 
was unrestrained either by justice or by shame. He 

10 had the effrontery to ask for a thousand louis more, 
in order to enable him to bring his niece, Madame 
Denis, the ugliest of coquettes, in his company. The 
indelicate rapacity of the poet produced its natural 
effect on the severe and frugal King. The answer 

J5was a dry refusal. ''I did not," said his Majesty, 



110 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

''solicit the honour of the lady's society." On this, 
Voltaire went off into a paroxysm of childish rage. 
"Was there ever such avarice? He has hundreds of 
tubs full of dollars in his vaults, and haggles with me 
about a poor thousand louis. ' ' It seemed that the 5 
negotiation would be broken off; but Frederic, with 
great dexterity, affected indifference, and seemed in- 
clined to transfer his idolatry to Baculard D 'Arnaud. 
His Majesty even wrote some bad verses, of which the 
sense was, that Voltaire was a setting sun, and thatio 
D 'Arnaud was rising. Good-natured friends soon 
carried the lines to Voltaire. He was in his bed. He 
jumped out in his shirt, danced about the room with 
rage, and sent for his passport and his post-horses. 
It was not difficult to foresee the end of a connection 15 
which had such a beginning. 

It was in the year 1750 that Voltaire left the great 
capital, which he was not to see again till, after the 
lapse of near thirty years, he returned, bowed down 
by extreme old age, to die in the midst of a splendid 20 
and ghastly triumph. His reception in Prussia was 
such as might well have elated a less vain and excit- 
able mind. He wrote to his friends at Paris, that the 
kindness and the attention with which he had been 
welcomed surpassed description, that the King was 25 
the most amiable of men, that Potsdam was the para- 
dise of philosophers. He was created chamberlain, 
and received, together with his gold key, the cross of 
an order, and a patent ensuring to him a pension of 
eight hundred pounds sterling a year for life. A 30 
hundred and sixty pounds a year were promised to 
his niece if she survived him. The royal cooks and 
coachmen were put at his disposal. He was lodged 
in the same apartments in which Saxe had lived, 
when, at the height of power and glory, he visited 35 



FEEDERIC THE GREAT. HI 

Prussia. Frederic, indeed, stooped for a time even 
to use the language of adulation. He pressed to his 
lips the meagre hand of the little grinning skeleton, 
whom he regarded as the dispenser of immortal re- 

5 nown. He would add, he said, to the titles which he 
owed to his ancestors and his sword, another title, 
derived from his last and proudest acquisition. His 
style should run thus: — Frederic, King of Prussia, 
]\Iargrave of Brandenburg, Sovereign Duke of Silesia, 

10 Possessor of Voltaire. But even amidst the delights 
of the honeymoon, Voltaire's sensitive vanity began 
to take alarm. A few days after his arrival, he could 
not help telling his niece that the amiable King had 
a trick of giving a sly scratch with one hand, while 

15 patting and stroking with the other. Soon came hints 
not the less alarming, because mysterious. ''The 
supper parties are delicious. The King is the life of 
the company. But — I have operas and comedies, re- 
views and concerts, my studies and books. But — 

20 but — Berlin is fine, the princesses charming, the 
maids of honour handsome. But" — 

This eccentric friendship was fast cooling. Never 
had there met two persons so exquisitely fitted to 
plague each other. Each of them had exactly the 

25 fault of which the other was most impatient ; and 
they were, in different ways, the most impatient of 
mankind. Frederic was frugal, almost niggardly. 
When he had secured his plaything he began to think 
that he had bought it too dear. Voltaire, on the other 

30 hand, was greedy, even to the extent of impudence 
and knavery; and conceived that the favourite of a 
monarch who had barrels full of gold and silver laid 
up in cellars ought to make a fortune which a re- 
ceiver-general might envy. They soon discovered each 

35 other's feelings. Both were angry; and a war be- 



112 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

gan, in which Frederic stooped to the part of Har- 
pagon, and Voltaire to that of Scapin. It is humili- 
ating to relate, that the great warrior and statesman 
gave orders that his guest's allowance of sugar and 
chocolate should be curtailed. It is, if possible, as 
still more humiliating fact, that Voltaire indemni- 
fied himself by pocketing the wax-candles in the royal 
antechamber. Disputes about money, however, were 
not the most serious disputes of these extraordinary 
associates. The sarcasms of the King soon galled the lo 
sensitive temper of the poet. D'Arnaud and D'Ar- 
gens, Guichard and La Metric, might, for the sake of 
a morsel of bread, be willing to bear the insolence of 
a master; but Voltaire was of another order. He 
knew that he was a potentate as well as Frederic, 15 
that his European reputation, and his incomparable 
power of covering whatever he hated with ridicule, 
made him an object of dread even to the leaders of 
armies and the rulers of nations. In truth, of all the 
intellectual weapons which have ever been wielded by 20 
man, the most terrible was the mockery of Voltaire. 
Bigots and tyrants, who had never been moved by the 
wailing and cursing of millions, turned pale at his 
name. Principles unassailable by reason, principles 
Avhieh had withstood the fiercest attacks of power, the 25 
most valuable truths, the most generous sentiments, 
the noblest and most graceful images, the purest 
reputations, the most august institutions, began 
to look mean and loathsome as soon as that with- 
ering smile was turned upon them. To every op- 30 
ponent, however strong in his cause and his tal- 
ents, in his station and his character, who ven- 
tured to encounter the great scoffer, might be ad- 
dressed the caution which was given of old to the 
Archangel : — 35 



FREDEETC THE GREAT. II3 

I forewarn thee, shun 
His deadly arrow; neither vainly hope 
To be invulnerable in those bright arms 
Though tempered heavenly; for that fatal dint, 
Save Him Avho reigns above, none can resist. 



We cannot pause to recount how often that rare 
talent was exercised against rivals worthy of esteem ; 
how often it was used to crush and torture enemies 
worthy only of silent disdain; how often it was per- 

10 verted to the more noxious purpose of destroying the 
last solace of earthly misery, and the last restraint 
on earthly power. Neither can we pause to tell how 
often it was used to vindicate justice, humanity, and 
toleration, the principles of sound philosophy, the 

15 principles of free government. This is not the place 
for a full character of Voltaire. 

Causes of quarrel multiplied fast. Voltaire, who, 
partly from love of money, and partly from love of 
excitement, was always fond of stock-jobbing, became 

20 implicated in transactions of at least a dubious char- 
acter. The King was delighted at having such an 
opportunity to humble his guest; and bitter re- 
proaches and complaints were exchanged. Voltaire, 
too, was soon at war with the other men of letters who 

25 surrounded the King ; and this irritated Frederic, 
who, however, had himself chiefly to blame ; for, from 
that love of tormenting which was in him a ruling 
passion, he perpetually lavished extravagant praises 
on small men and bad books, merely in order that he 

30 might enjoy the mortification and rage which on such 
occasions Voltaire took no pains to conceal. His 
majesty, however, soon had reason to regret the pains 
which he had taken to kindle jealousy among the 
members of his household. The whole palace was in 

35 a ferment with literary intrigues and cabals. It was 



114: MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

to no purpose that the imperial voice, which kept a 
hundred and sixty thousand soldiers in order, was 
raised to quiet the contention of the exasperated wits. 
It was far easier to stir up such a storm than to lull 
it. Nor was Frederic, in his capacity of wit, by any 5 
means without his own share of vexations. He had 
sent a large quantity of verses to Voltaire, and re- 
quested that they might be returned with marks and 
corrections. "See," exclaimed Voltaire, ''what a 
quantity of his dirty linen the King has sent me to 10 
wash!" Talebearers were not wanting to carry the 
sarcasm to the royal ear ; and Frederic was as much 
incensed as a Grub Street writer who had found his 
name in the Dunciad. 

This could not last. A circumstance which, when 15 
the mutual regard of the friends was in its first 
glow, would merely have been matter for laughter, 
produced a violent explosion. Maupertuis enjoyed as 
much of Frederic's good will as any man of letters. 
He was President of the Academy of Berlin ; and he 20 
stood second to Voltaire, though at an immense dis- 
tance, in the literary society which had been assem- 
bled at the Prussian court. Frederic had, by playing 
for his own amusement on the feelings of the two 
jealous and vain-glorious Frenchmen, succeeded in 25 
producing a bitter enmity between them. Voltaire 
resolved to set his mark, a mark never to be effaced, 
on the forehead of IMaupertuis, and wrote the ex- 
quisitely ludicrous Diatribe of Doctor Akakia. He 
showed this little piece to Frederic, who had too much 30 
taste and too much malice not to relish such delicious 
pleasantry. In truth, even at this time of day, it is 
not easy for any person who has the least perception 
of the ridiculous to read the jokes of the Latin city, 
the Patagonians, and the hole to the centre of the 35 



FEEDEEIC THE GREAT. 115 

earth, wihoiit laughing till he cries. But though 
Frederic was diverted by this charming pasquinade, 
he was unwilling that it should get abroad. His self- 
love was interested. He had selected Maupertuis to 

5 fill the chair of his Academy. If all Europe were 
taught to laugh at Maupertuis, would not the repu- 
tation of the Academy, would not even the dignity of 
its royal patron, be in some degree compromised ? The 
King, therefore, begged Voltaire to suppress this per- 

10 formance. Voltaire promised to do so, and broke his 
word. The Diatribe was published, and received with 
shouts of merriment and applause by all who could 
read the French language. The King stormed. Vol- 
taire, with his usual disregard of truth, asserted his 

15 innocence, and made up some lie about a printer or 
an amanuensis. The King was not to be so imposed 
upon. He ordered the pamphlet to be burned by the 
common hangman, and insisted upon having an 
apology from Voltaire, couched in the most abject 

20 terms. Voltaire sent back to the King his cross, his 
key, and the patent of his pension. After this burst 
of rage, the strange pair began to be ashamed of their 
violence, and went through the forms of reconcilia- 
tion. But the breach was irreparable; and Voltaire 

25 took his leave of Frederic forever. They parted with 
cold civility; but their hearts were big with resent- 
ment. Voltaire had in his keeping a volume of the 
King's poetry, and forgot to return it. This was, we 
])elieve, merely one of the oversights which men set- 

30 ting out upon a journey often commit. That Vol- 
taire could have meditated plagiarism is quite in- 
credible. He would not, we are confident, for the 
half of Frederic's kingdom, have consented to father 
Frederic's verses. The King, however, who rated his 

35 own writings much above their value, and who was 



116 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

inclined to see all Voltaire's actions in the worst 
light, was enraged to think that his favourite compo- 
sitions were in the hands of an enemy, as thievish as 
a daw and as mischievous as a monkey. In the anger 
excited by this thought, he lost sight of reason and 5 
decency, and determined on committing an outrage 
at once odious and ridiculous. 

Voltaire had reached Frankfort. His niece, 
Madame Denis, came thither to meet him. He con- 
ceived himself secure from the power of his late mas- lo 
ter, when he was arrested by order of the Prussian 
resident. The precious volume was delivered up. 
But the Prussian agents had, no doubt, been in- 
structed not to let Voltaire escape without some gross 
indignity. He was confined twelve days in a wretched 15 
hovel. Sentinels with fixed bayonets kept guard over 
him. His niece was dragged through the mire by the 
soldiers. Sixteen hundred dollars were extorted from 
him by his insolent gaolers. It is absurd to say that 
this outrage is not to be attributed to the King. Was 20 
anybody punished for it? Was anybody called in 
question for it ? Was it not consistent with Frederic 's 
character? Was it not of a piece with his conduct 
on other similar occasions? Is it not notorious that 
he repeatedly gave private directions to his officers to 25 
pillage and demolish the houses of persons against 
whom he had a grudge, charging them at the same 
time to take their measures in such a way that his 
name might not be compromised? He acted thus 
towards Count Briihl in the Seven Years ' War. Why 30 
should we believe that he would have been more scru- 
pulous with regard to Voltaire? 

When at length the illustrious prisoner regained 
his liberty, the prospect before him was but dreary. 
He was an exile both from the country of his birth 35 



FEEDEEIC THE GEEAT. 117 

and from the country of his adoption. The French 
government had taken offence at his journey to Prus- 
sia, and would not permit him to return to Paris ; and 
in the vicinity of Prussia it was not safe for him to 

5 remain. 

He took refuge on the beautiful shores of Lake Le- 
man. There, loosed from every tie which had hitherto 
restrained him, and having little to hope or to fear 
from courts and churches, he began his long war 

10 against all that, whether for good or evil, had authority 
over man; for what Burke said of the Constituent 
Assembly, was eminently true of this its great fore- 
runner : Voltaire could not build : he could only pull 
down: he was the very Vitruvius of ruin. He has 

15 bequeathed to us not a single doctrine to be called by 
his name, not a single addition to the stock of our 
positive knowledge. But no human teacher ever left 
behind him so vast and terrible a wreck of truths and 
falsehoods, of things noble and things base, of things 

20 useful and things pernicious. From the time when 
his sojourn beneath the Alps commenced, the dram- 
atist, the wit, the historian, was merged in a more 
important character. He was now the patriarch, the 
founder of a sect, the chief of a conspiracy, the prince 

25 of a wide intellectual commonwealth. He often en- 
joyed a pleasure dear to the better part of his nature, 
the pleasure of vindicating innocence which had no 
other helper, of repairin^i' cruel wrongs, of pun- 
ishing tyranny in high places. He had also the 

30 satisfaction not less acceptable to his ravenous van- 
ity, of hearing terrified Capuchins call him the 
Antichrist. But whether employed in works of be. 
nevolence, or in works of mischief, he never for- 
got Potsdam and Frankfort; and he listened anx- 

35 iously to every murmur which indicated that a tem- 



118 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

pest was gathering in Europe, and that his vengeance 
was at hand. 

He soon had his wish. Maria Theresa had never 
for a moment forgotten the great wrong which she had 
received at the hand of Frederic. Young and delicate, 5 
just left an orphan, just about to be a mother, she had 
been compelled to fly from the ancient capital of her 
race; she had seen her fair inheritance dismembered 
by robbers, and of those robbers he had been the fore- 
most. Without a pretext, without a provocation, inio 
defiance of the most sacred engagements, he had at- 
tacked the helpless ally whom he was bound to defend. 
The Empress Queen had the faults as well as the vir- 
tues which are connected with quick sensibility and 
a high spirit. There was no peril which she was not 15 
ready to brave, no calamity which she was not ready 
to bring on her subjects, or on the whole human race, 
if only she might once taste the sweetness of a com- 
plete revenge. Revenge, too, presented itself, to her 
narrow and superstitious mind, in the guise of duty. 20 
Silesia had been wrested not only from the House of 
Austria, but from the Church of Rome. The con- 
queror had indeed permitted his new subjects to wor- 
ship God after their own fashion; but this was not 
enough. To bigotry it seemed an intolerable hardship 25 
that the Catholic Church, having long enjoyed 
ascendency, should be compelled to content itself with 
equality. Nor was this the only circumstance which 
led Maria Theresa to regard her enemy as the enemy 
of God. The profaneness of Frederic's writings and 30 
conversation, and the frightful rumours which were 
circulated respecting the immorality of his private 
life, naturally shocked a woman who believed with 
the firmest faith all that her confessor told her, and 
who, though surrounded by temptations, though 35 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 119 

young and beautiful, though ardent in all her pas- 
sions, though possessed of absolute power, had pre- 
served her fame unsullied even by the breath of 
slander, 

5 To recover Silesia, to humble the dynasty of Hohen- 
zollern to the dust, v^as the great object of her life. 
She toiled during many years for this end, with zeal 
as indefatigable as that which the poet ascribes to the 
stately goddess who tired out her immortal horses in 

10 the work of raising the nations against Troy, and who 
offered to give up to destruction her darling Sparta 
and IMycenae, if only she might once see the smoke 
going up from the palace of Priam. With even such 
a spirit did the proud Austrian Juno strive to array 

15 against her foe a coalition such as Europe had never 
seen. Nothing would content her but that the whole 
civilized world, from the White Sea to the Adriatic, 
from the Bay of Biscay to the pastures of the wild 
horses of the Tanais, should be combined in arms 

20 against one petty state. 

She early succeeded by various arts in obtaining 
the adhesion of Russia, An ample share of spoil was 
promised to the King of Poland; and that prince, 
governed by his favourite, Count Briihl, readily prom- 

25 ised the assistance of the Saxon forces. The great 
difficulty was with France. That the Houses of Bour- 
bon and of Hapsburg should ever cordially co-operate 
in any great scheme of European policy, had long 
been thought, to use the strong expression of Frederic, 

30 just as impossible as that fire and water should amal- 
gamate. The whole history of the Continent, during 
two centuries and a half, had been the history of the 
mutual jealousies and enmities of France and Aus- 
tria. Since the administration of Pichelieu, above 

35 all, it had been considered as the plain policy of the 



120 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

]\Iost Christian King to thwart on all occasions the 
Court of Vienna, and to protect every member of the 
Germanic body who stood up against the dictation of 
the Csesars. Common sentiments of religion had been 
unable to mitigate this strong antipathy. The rulers 5 
of France, even while clothed in the Roman purple, 
even while persecuting the heretics of Rochelle and 
Auvergne, had still looked with favor on the Lutheran 
and Calvinistic princes who were struggling against 
the chief of the empire. If the French ministers paid lo 
any respect to the traditional rules handed down to 
them through many generations, they would have 
acted towards Frederic as the greatest of their prede- 
cessors acted towards Gustavus Adolphus. That 
there was deadly enmity between Prussia and Austria 15 
was of itself a sufficient reason for close friendship 
between Prussia and France. With France Frederic 
could never have any serious controversy. His terri- 
tories were so situated that his ambition, greedy and 
unscrupulous as it was, could never impel him to at- 20 
tack her of his own accord. He was more than half 
a Frenchman: he wrote, spoke, read nothing but 
French: he delighted in French society: the admira- 
tion of the French he proposed to himself as the best 
reward of all his exploits. It seemed incredible that 25 
any French government, however notorious for levity 
or stupidity, could spurn away such an ally. 

The Court of Vienna, however, did not despair. 
The Austrian diplomatists propounded a new scheme 
of politics, which, it must be owned, was not altogether 30 
without plausibility. The great powers, according to 
this theory, had long been under a delusion. They 
had looked on each other as natural enemies, while in 
truth they were natural allies. A succession of cruel 
wars had devastated Europe, had thinned the popula- 35 



FEEDEEIC THE GREAT. 121 

tion, had exhausted the public resources, had loaded 
governments with an immense burden of debt ; and 
when, after two hundred years of murderous hostility 
or of hollow truce, the illustrious Houses whose en- 

5 mity had distracted the world sat down to count their 
gains, to what did the real advantage on either side 
amount? Simply to this, that they had kept each 
other from thriving. It was not the King of France, 
it was not the Emperor, who had reaped the fruits of 

10 the Thirty Years' War, or of the War of the Prag- 
matic Sanction. Those fruits had been pilfered by 
states of the second and third rank, which, secured 
against jealousy by their insignificance, had dexter- 
ously aggrandised themselves while pretending to 

15 serve the animosity of the great chiefs of Christendom. 
While the lion and tiger were tearing each other, the 
jackal had run off into the jungle with the prey. The 
real gainer by the Thirty Years' War had been 
neither France nor Austria, but Sweden. The real 

20 gainer by the war of the Pragmatic Sanction had been 
neither France nor Austria, but the upstart of Bran- 
denburg. France had made great efforts, had added 
largely to her military glory, and largely to her pub- 
lic burdens; and for what end? Merely that Fred- 

25 eric might rule Silesia. For this and this alone one 
French army, wasted by sword and famine, had 
perished in Bohemia; and another had purchased, 
with floods of the noblest blood, the barren glory of 
Fontenoy. And this prince, for whom France had 

30 suffered so much, was he a grateful, was he even an 
honest ally? Had he not been as false to the Court 
of Versailles as to the Court of Vienna? Had he not 
played, on a large scale, the same part which, in pri- 
vate life, is played by the vile agent of chicane who 

35 sets his neighbours quarrelling, involves them in costly 



122 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

and interminable litigation, and betrays them to each 
other all round, certain that, whoever may be ruined, 
he shall be enriched? Surely the true wisdom of the 
great powers was to attack, not each other, but this 
common barrator, who, by inflaming the passions of 5 
both, by pretending to serve both, and by deserting 
both, had raised himself above the station to which he 
was born. The great object of Austria was to regain 
Silesia; the great object of France was to obtain an 
accession of territory on the side of Flanders. If they 10 
took opposite sides, the result would probably be that, 
after a war of many years, after the slaughter of many 
thousands of brave men, after the waste of many 
millions of crowns, they would lay down their arms 
without having achieved either object; but, if they 15 
came to an understanding, there would be no risk, and 
no difficulty. Austria would willingly make in Bel- 
gium such cessions as France could not expect to 
obtain by ten pitched battles. Silesia would easily 
be annexed to the monarchy of which it had long 20 
been a part. The union of two such powerful govern- 
ments would at once overawe the King of Prussia. 
If he resisted, one short campaign would settle his 
fate. France and Austria, long accustomed to rise 
from the game of war both losers, would, for the 25 
first time, both be gainers. There could be no room 
for jealousy between them. The power of both would 
be increased at once; the equilibrium between them 
would be preserved; and the only sufferer would be 
a mischievous and unprincipled buccaneer, who de-30 
served no tenderness from either. 

These doctrines, attractive from their novelty and 
ingenuity, soon became fashionable at the supper- 
parties and in the coffee-houses of Paris, and were 
espoused by every gay JMarquis, and every facetious 35 



FREDEEIC THE GREAT. 123 

abbe who was admitted to see Madame de Pompa- 
dour's hair curled and powdered. It was not, how- 
ever, to any political theory that the strange coalition 
between France and Austria owed its origin. The 

5 real motive which induced the great continental 
powers to forget their old animosities and their old 
state maxims, was personal aversion to the King of 
Prussia. This feeling was strongest in Maria Theresa ; 
but it was by no means confined to her. Frederic, in 

10 some respects a good master, was emphatically a bad 
neighbour. That he was hard in all dealings, and 
quick to take all advantages, was not his most odious 
fault. His bitter and scoffing speech had inflicted 
keener wounds than his ambition. In his character of 

15 wit he was under less restraint than even in his char- 
acter of ruler. Satirical verses against all the princes 
and ministers of Europe were ascribed to his pen. In 
his letters and conversation he alluded to the greatest 
potentates of the age in terms which would have bet- 

20 ter suited Colle, in a war of repartee with young 
Crebillon at Pelletier's table, than a great sovereign 
speaking of great sovereigns. About women he was 
in the habit of expressing himself in a manner which 
it was impossible for the meekest of women to for- 

25 give; and, unfortunately for him, almost the whole 
Continent was then governed by women who were by 
no means conspicuous for meekness. Maria Theresa 
herself had not escaped his scurrilous jests. The 
Empress Elizabeth of Russia knew that her gallantries 

30 afforded him a favourite theme for ribaldry and in- 
vective, ^ladame de Pompadour, who was really the 
head of the French Government, had been even more 
keenly galled. She had attempted, by the most deli- 
cate flattery, to propitiate the King of Prussia; but 

35 her messages had drawn from him only dry and sar- 



124 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

castic replies. The Empress Queen took a very dif- 
ferent course. Though the haughtiest of princesses, 
though the most austere of matrons, she forgot, in her 
thirst for revenge, both the dignity of her race and 
the purity of her character, and condescended to flat- 5 
ter the low-born and low-minded concubine, who 
having acquired influence by prostituting herself, 
retained it by prostituting others. Maria Theresa 
actually wrote with her own hand a note, full of ex- 
pressions of esteem and friendship to her dear cousin, 10 
the daughter of the butcher Poisson, the wife of the 
publican D'Etoiles, the kidnapper of young girls for 
the harem of an old rake, a strange cousin for the 
descendant of so many Emperors of the West ! The 
mistress was completely gained over, and easily car- 15 
ried her point with Louis, who had, indeed, wrongs 
of his own to resent. His feelings were not quick; 
but contempt, says the eastern proverb, pierces even 
through the shell of a tortoise ; and neither prudence 
nor decorum had ever restrained Frederic from ex- 20 
pressing his measureless contempt for the sloth, the 
imbecility, and the baseness of Louis. France was 
thus induced to join the coalition; and the example 
of France determined the conduct of Sweden, then 
completely subject to French influence. 25 

The enemies of Frederic were surely strong enough 
to attack him openly; but they were desirous to add 
to all their other advantages, the advantage of a sur- 
prise. He was not, however, a man to be taken off his 
guard. He had tools in every court; and he now 30 
received from Vienna, from Dresden, and from Paris, 
accounts so circumstantial and so consistent, that he 
could not doubt of his danger. He learnt that he 
was to be assailed at once by France, Austria, Russia, 
Saxony, Sweden, and the Germanic body; that the 35 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 125 

greater part of his dominions was to be portioned out 
among his enemies; that France, which from her 
geographical position could not directly share in his 
spoils, was to receive an equivalent in the Nether- 

5 lands; that Austria was to have Silesia, and the 
Czarina East Prussia ; that Augustus of Saxony ex- 
pected Magdeburg ; and that Sweden would be re- 
warded with part of Pomerania. If these designs 
succeeded, the House of Brandenburg would at once 

10 sink in the European system to a place lower than 
that of the Duke of Wurtemburg or the Margrave of 
Baden. 

And what hope was there that these designs would 
fail? No such union of the continental powers had 

15 been seen for ages. A less formidable confederacy 
had in a week conquered all the provinces of Venice, 
when Venice was at the height of power, wealth, and 
glory. A less formidable confederacy had compelled 
Louis the Fourteenth to bow down his haughty head 

20 to the very earth. A less formidable confederacy has, 
within our own memory, subjugated a still mightier 
empire, and abased a still prouder name. Such odds 
had never been heard of in war. The people whom 
Frederic ruled were not five millions. The popula- 

25 tion of the countries which were leagued against him 
amounted to a hundred millions. The disproportion 
in wealth was at least equally great. Small commu- 
nities, actuated by strong sentiments of patriotism or 
loyalty, have sometimes made head against great mon- 

30 archies weakened by factions and discontents. But 
small as was Frederic's kingdom, it probably con- 
tained a greater number of disaffected subjects than 
were to be found in all the states of his enemies. 
Silesia formed the fourth part of his dominions ; and 

35 from the Silesians, born under Austrian princes, the 



126 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

utmost that he could expect was apathy. From the 
Silesian Catholics he could hardly expect anything 
but resistance. 

Some states have been enabled, by their geographi- 
cal position, to defend themselves with advantages 
against immense force. The sea has repeatedly pro- 
tected England against the fury of the whole Con- 
tinent. The Venetian government, driven from its 
possessions on the land, could still bid defiance to the 
confederates of Cambray from the Arsenal amidst the 10 
lagoons. More than one great and well appointed 
army, which regarded the shepherds of Switzerland 
as an easy prey, has perished in the passes of the 
Alps. Frederic had no such advantage. The form of 
his states, their situation, the nature of the ground, 15 
all were against him. His long, scattered, straggling 
territory seemed to have been shaped with an express 
view to the convenience of invaders, and was pro- 
tected by no sea, by no chain of hills. Scarcely any 
corner of it was a week's march from the territory of 20 
the enemy. The capital itself, in the event of war, 
would be constantly exposed to insult. In truth, 
there was hardly a politician or a soldier in Europe 
who doubted that the conflict would be terminated in 
a very few days by the prostration of the house of 25 
Brandenburg. 

Nor was Frederic 's own opinion very different. He 
anticipated nothing short of his own ruin, and of the 
ruin of his family. Yet there was still a chance, a 
slender chance, of escape. His states had at least the so 
advantage of a central position; his enemies were 
widely separated from each other, and could not con- 
veniently unite their overwhelming forces on one 
point. They inhabited different climates, and it was 
probable that the season of the year which would be 35 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 1-27 

best suited to the military operations of one portion 
of the league, would be unfavourable to those of an- 
other portion. The Prussian monarchy, too, was free 
from some infirmities which were found in empires 

5 far more extensive and magnificent. Its effective 
strength for a desperate struggle was not to be meas- 
ured merely by the number of square miles or the 
number of people. In that spare but well-knit and 
well-exercised body, there was nothing but sinew, and 

10 muscle, and bone. No public creditors looked for 
dividends. No distant colonies required defence. No 
court, filled with flatterers and mistresses, devoured 
the pay of fifty battalions. The Prussian army, 
though far inferior in number to the troops which 

15 were about to be opposed to it, was yet strong out of 
all proportion to the extent of the Prussian domin- 
ions. It was also admirably trained and admirably 
officered, accustomed to obey and accustomed to con- 
quer. The revenue was not only unincumbered by 

20 debt, but exceeded the ordinary outlay in time of 
peace. Alone of all the European princes, Frederic 
had a treasure laid up for a day of difficulty. Above 
all, he was one, and his enemies were many. In their 
camps would certainly be found the jealousy, the 

25 dissension, the slackness inseparable from coalitions ; 
on his side was the energy, the unity, the secrecy of 
a strong dictatorship. To a certain extent the de- 
ficiency of military means might be supplied by the 
resources of military art. Small as the King's army 

30 was, when compared with the six hundred thousand 
men whom the confederates could bring into the field, 
celerity of movement might in some degree compen- 
sate for deficiency of bulk. It was thus just possible 
that genius, judgment, resolution, and good luck 

35 united, might protract the struggle during a cam- 



12S MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

paign or two; and to gain even a month was of im- 
portance. It could not be long before the vices which 
are found in all extensive confederacies would begin 
to show themselves. Every member of the league 
would think his own share of the war too large, and 5 
his own share of the spoils too small. Complaints 
and recriminations would abound. The Turk might 
stir on the Danube; the statesmen of France might 
discover the error which they had committed in aban- 
doning the fundamental principles of their national lo 
policy. Above all, death might rid Prussia of its 
most formidable enemies. The wa.r was the effect of 
the personal aversion with which three or four sover- 
eigns regarded Frederic; and the decease of any one 
of those sovereigns might produce a complete revolu- 15 
tion in the state of Europe. 

In the midst of a horizon generally dark and stormy, 
Frederic could discern one bright spot. The peace 
which had bee'a concluded between England and 
France in 1748, had been in Europe no more than an 20 
armistice ; and had not even been an armistice in the 
other quarters of the globe. In India the sovereignty 
of the Carnatic was disputed betw^een two great Mus- 
sulman houses; Fort Saint George had taken one 
side, Pondicherry the other ; and in a series of battles 25 
and sieges the troops of Lawrence and Clive had been 
opposed to those of Dupleix. A struggle less impor- 
tant in its consequences, but not less likely to produce 
irritation, w^as carried on between those French and 
English adventurers, who kidnaped negroes and col- 30 
lected gold dust on the coast of Guinea. But it was 
in North America that the emulation and mutual 
aversion of the two nations were most conspicuous. 
The French attempted to hem in the English colo- 
nists by a chain of military posts, extending from the 35 



FREDERIC: THE GREAT. 129 

Great Lakes to the month of the INFississippi. The 
English took arms. The wild aboriginal tribes ap- 
peared on each side mingled with the Pale Faces. 
Battles were fought; forts were stormed; and hideous 

5 stories about stakes, scalpings, and death-songs 
reached Europe, and inflamed that national animosity 
which the rivalry of ages had produced. The dis- 
putes between France and England came to a crisis 
at the very time when the tempest which had been 

10 gathering was about to burst on Prussia. The tastes 
and interests of Frederic would have led him, if he 
had been allowed an option, to side with the house of 
Bourbon. But the folly of the Court of Versailles 
left him no choice. France became the tool of Aus- 

15 tria ; and Frederic was forced to become the ally of 
England. He could not, indeed, expect that a power 
which covered the sea with its fleets, and which had 
to make war at once on the Ohio and the Ganges, 
would be able to spare a large number of troops for 

20 operations in Germany. But England, though poor 
compared with the England of our time, was far 
richer than any country on the Continent. The 
amount of her revenue, and the resources which she 
found in her credit, though they may be thought 

25 small by a generation which has seen her raise a hun- 
dred and thirty millions in a single year, appeared 
miraculous to the politicians of that age. A very mod- 
erate portion of her wealth, expended by an able and 
economical prince, in a country where prices were 

30 low would be sufficient to equip and maintain a 
formidable army. 

Such was the situation in which Frederic found 
himself. He saw the whole extent of his peril. He 
saw that there was still a faint possibility of escape; 

35 and, with prudent temerity, he determined to strike 



130 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

the first blow. It was in the month of August, 1756, 
that the great war of the Seven Years commenced. 
The King demanded of the Empress Queen a distinct 
explanation of her intentions, and plainly told her 
that he should consider a refusal as a declaration of 5 
war. ''I want," he said, ''no answer in the style of 
an oracle." He received an answer at once haughty 
and evasive. In an instant the rich electorate of 
Saxony was overflowed by sixty thousand Prussian 
troops. Augustus with his army occupied a strong lo 
position at Pirna. The Queen of Poland was at Dres- 
den. In a few days Pirna was blockaded and Dres- 
den was taken. The first object of Frederic was to 
obtain possession of the Saxon State Papers; for 
those papers, he well knew, contained ample proofs is 
that, though apparently an aggressor, he was really 
acting in self-defence. The Queen of Poland, as well 
acquainted as Frederic with the importance of those 
documents, had packed them up, had concealed them 
in her bed-chamber, and was about to send them off 20 
to Warsaw, when a Prussian officer made his appear- 
ance. In the hope that no soldier would venture to 
outrage a lady, a queen, the daughter of an emperor, 
the mother-in-law of a dauphin, she placed herself 
before the trunk, and at length sat down on it. But 25 
all resistance was vain. The papers were carried to 
Frederic, who found in them, as he expected, abun- 
dant evidence of the designs of the coalition. The 
most important documents were instantly published, 
and the effect of the publication was great. It was 30 
clear that, of whatever sins the King of Prussia might 
formerly have been guilty, he was now the injured 
party, and had merely anticipated a blow intended 
to destroy him. 

The Saxon camp at Pirna was in the mean time 35 



FEEDEEIC THE GEEAT. 131 

closely invested; but the besieged were not without 
hopes of succour. A great Austrian army under I\Iar- 
shal Brown was about to pour through the passes 
which separate Bohemia from Saxony. Frederic left 

5 at Pirna a force sufficient to deal with the Saxons, 
hastened into Bohemia, encountered Brown at Lowo- 
sitz, and defeated him. This battle decided the fate 
of Saxony. Augustus and his favourite Briihl fled to 
Poland. The whole army of the electorate capitu- 

lolated. From that time till the end of the war, Fred- 
eric treated Saxony as a part of his dominions, or, 
rather, he acted towards the Saxons in a manner which 
may serve to illustrate the whole meaning of that 
tremendous sentence, "subjectos tanquam suos, viles 

15 tanquam alienos. ' ' Saxony was as much in his power 
as Brandenburg ; and he had no such interest in the 
welfare of Saxony as he had in the welfare of Bran- 
denburg. He accordingly levied troops and exacted 
contributions throughout the enslaved province, with 

20 far more rigour than in any part of his own do- 
minions. Seventeen thousand men who had been 
in the camp at Pirna were half compelled, half 
persuaded to enlist under their conqueror. Thus, 
within a few weeks from the commencement of 

25 hostilities, one of the confederates had been dis- 
armed, and his weapons were now pointed against 
the rest. 

The winter put a stop to military operations. All 
had hitherto gone well. But the real tug of war was 

30 still to come. It was easy to foresee that the year 
1757 would be a memorable era in the history of 
Europe. 

The King's scheme for the campaign was simple, 
bold, and judicious. The Duke of Cumberland with 

35 an English and Hanoverian army was in Western 



132 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

Germany, and might be able to prevent the French 
troops from attacking Prussia. The Russians, con- 
fined by their snows, would probably not stir till the 
spring was far advanced. Saxony was prostrated. 
Sweden could do nothing very important. During as 
few months Frederic would have to deal with Austria 
alone. Even thus the odds were against him. But 
ability and courage have often triumphed against 
odds still more formidable. 

Early in 1757 the Prussian army in Saxony began lO 
to move. Through four defiles in the mountains they 
came pouring into Bohemia. Prague was the King's 
first mark; but the ulterior object was probably 
Vienna. At Prague lay Marshal Brown with one 
great army. Daun, the most cautious and fortunate 15 
of the Austrian captains, was advancing Avitli another. 
Frederic determined to overwhelm Brown before 
Daun should arrive. On the sixth of May was fought, 
under those walls which, a hundred and thirty years 
before, had witnessed the victory of the Catholic 20 
league and the flight of the unhappy Palatine, a 
battle more bloody than any which Europe saw dur- 
ing the long interval between Malplaquet and Eylau. 
The King and Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick were 
distinguished on that day by their valour and exer- 25 
tions. But the chief glory was with Schwerin. "When 
the Prussian infantry wavered, the stout old marshal 
snatched the colours from an ensign, and, waving 
them in the air, led back his regiment to the charge. 
Thus at seventy-two years of age he fell in the thick- 30 
est battle, still grasping the standard which bears the 
black eagle on the field argent. The victory remained 
with the King; but it had been dearly purchased. 
AVhole columns of his bravest warriors had fallen. H(^ 
admitted that he had lost eighteen thousand men. OF 35 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. I33 

the enemy, twenty-four thousand had been killed, 
wounded, or taken. 

Part of the defeated army was shut up in Prague. 
Part fled to join the troops wdiich, under the com- 

5 mand of Daun, were now close at hand. Frederic 
determined to play over the same game which had 
succeeded at Lowositz. He left a large force to be- 
siege Prague, and at the head of thirty thousand men 
he marched against Daun. The cautious Marshal, 

10 though he had a great superiority in numbers, 
would risk nothing. He occupied at Kolin a position 
almost impregnable, and awaited the attack of the 
King. 

It was the eighteenth of June, a day which, if the 

15 Greek superstition still retained its influence, would 
be held sacred to Nemesis, a day on which the two 
greatest princes of modern times Avere taught, by a 
terrible experience, that neither skill nor valour can 
fix the inconstancy of fortune. The battle began 

20 before noon ; and part of the Prussian army main- 
tained the contest till after the midsummer sun had 
gone down. But at length the King found that his 
troops, having been repeatedly driven back with fright- 
ful carnage, could no longer be led to the charge. He 

25 was with difficulty persuaded to quit the field. The 
officers of his personal staff were under the necessity 
of expostulating with him, and one of them took the 
liberty to say, ''Does your Majesty mean to storm 
the batteries alone?" Thirteen thousand of his 

30 bravest followers had perished. Nothing remained 
for him but to retreat in good order, to raise the siege 
of Prague, and to hurry his army by different routes 
out of Bohemia. 

Tliis stroke seemed to be final. Frederic's situation 

35 had at Ix'st 1)een sucli, that only an uninterrupted 



134 MACAXJLAY'S ESSAYS. 

run of good luck could save him, as it seemed, from 
ruin. And now, almost in the outset of the contest, 
he had met with a check which, even in a war between 
equal powers, would have been felt as serious. He 
had owed much to the opinion which all Europe en- 5 
tertained of his army. Since his accession, his soldiers 
had in many successive battles been victorious over 
the Austrians. ' But the glory had departed from his 
arms. All whom his malevolent sarcasms had 
wounded, made haste to avenge themselves by 10 
scoffing at the scoffer. His soldiers had ceased to con- 
fide in his star. In every part of his camp his dis- 
positions were severely criticized. Even in his own 
family he had detractors. His next brother, William, 
heir-presumptive, or rather, in truth, heir-apparent 15 
to the throne, and great-grandfather of the present 
king, could not refrain from lamenting his own fate 
and that of the house of Hohenzollern, once so great 
and so prosperous, but now, by the rash ambition of 
its chief, made a by-word to all nations. These com- 20 
plaints, and some blunders which William commit- 
ted during the retreat from Bohemia, called forth the 
bitter displeasure of the inexorable King. The 
princess heart was broken by the cutting reproaches 
of his brother ; he quitted the army, retired to a coun- 25 
try seat, and in a short time died of shame and vexa- 
tion. 

It seemed that the King's distress could hardly be 
increased. Yet at this moment another blow not less 
terrible than that of Kolin fell upon him. The French 30 
under Marshal D'Estrees had invaded Germany. The 
Duke of Cumberland had given them battle at Has- 
tembeck, and had been defeated. In order to save the 
Electorate of Hanover from entire subjugation, he 
had made, at Closter Seven, an arrangement with the 35 



rREDERIC THE GREAT. 135 

French Generals, which left them at liberty to turn 
their arms against the Prussian dominions. 

That nothing might be wanting to Frederic's dis- 
tress, he lost his mother just at this time; and he 

5 appears to have felt the loss more than was to be ex- 
pected from the hardness and severity of his charac- 
ter. In truth, his misfortunes had now cut to the 
quick. The mocker, the tyrant, the most rigorous, 
the most imperious, the most cynical of men, was very 

10 unhappy. His face was so haggard and his form so 
thin, that when on his return from Bohemia he passed 
through Leipsic, the people hardly knew him again. 
His sleep was broken; the tears, in spite of himself, 
often started into his eyes; and the grave began to 

15 present itself to his agitated mind as the best refuge 
from misery and dishonour. His resolution was fixed 
never to be taken alive, and never to make peace on 
condition of descending from his place among the 
powers of Europe. He saw nothing left for him ex- 

zocept to die; and he deliberately chose his mode of 
death. He always carried about with him a sure and 
speedy poison in a small glass case; and to the few 
in whom he placed confidence, he made no mystery of 
his resolution. 

25 But we should very imperfectly describe the state 
of Frederic's mind, if we left out of view the laugh- 
able peculiarities which contrasted so singularly with 
the gravity, energy, and harshness of his character. 
It is difficult to say whether the tragic or the comic 

30 predominated in the strange scene which was then act- 
ing. In the midst of all the great King's calamities, 
his passion for writing indifferent poetry grew 
stronger and stronger. Enemies all round him, de- 
spair in his heart, pills of corrosive sublimate hidden 

35 in liis clothes, lie poured forth hundreds upon hun- 



136 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

dreds of lines, hateful to gods and men, the insipid 
dregs of Voltaire's Hippocrene, the faint echo of the 
lyre of Chaulieu. It is amusing to compare what he 
did during the last months of 1757, with what he 
wrote during the same time. It may be doubted 5 
whether any equal portion of the life of Hannibal, 
of Caesar, or of Napoleon, will bear a comparison with 
that short period, the most brilliant in the history 
of Prussia and of Frederic. Yet at this very time the 
scanty leisure of the illustrious warrior was employed lo 
in producing odes and epistles, a little better than 
Gibber's, and a little worse than Hayley's. Here and 
there a manly sentiment which deserves to be in prose 
makes its appearance in company with Prometheus 
and Orpheus, Elysium and Acheron, the plaintive is 
Philomel, the poppies of ^Morpheus, and all the other 
frippery which, like a robe tossed by a proud beauty 
to her waiting-woman, has long been contemptuously 
abandoned by genius to mediocrity. We hardly know 
any instance of the strength and weakness of human 20 
nature so striking, and so grotesque, as the' character 
of this haughty, vigilant, resolute, sagacious blue- 
stocking, half Mithridates and half Trissotin, bearing 
up against a world in arms, with an ounce of poison 
in one pocket and a quire of bad verses in the other. 25 

Frederic had some time before made advances to- 
wards a reconciliation with Voltaire; and some civil 
letters had passed between them. After the battle of 
Kolin their epistolary intercourse became, at least in 
seeming, friendly and confidential. We do not know 30 
any collection of Letters which throws so much light 
on the darkest and most intricate parts of human na- 
ture, as the correspondence of these strange beings 
after they had exchanged forgiveness. Both felt that 
the quarrel had lowered them in the public estima- 35 



FREDEEIC THE GREAT. I37 

tion. They admired each other. They stood in need 
of each other. The great King wished to be handed 
down to posterity by the great Writer. The great 
Writer felt himself exalted by the homage of the 

5 great King. Yet the wounds which they had inflicted 
on each other were too deep to be effaced, or even 
perfectly healed. Not only did the scars remain ; the 
sore places often festered and bled afresh. The let- 
ters consisted for the most part of compliments, 

10 thanks, offers of service, assurances of attachment. 
But if any thing brought back to Frederic's recollec- 
tion the cunning and mischievous pranks by which 
Voltaire had provoked him, some expression of con- 
tempt and displeasure broke forth in the midst of 

15 eulogy. It was much worse when any thing recalled 
to the mind of Voltaire the outrages which he and his 
kinswoman had suffered at Frankfort. All at once 
his flowing panegyric was turned into invective. ''Re- 
member how you behaved to me. For your sake I 

20 have lost the favour of my native king. For your 
sake I am an exile from my country. I loved you. I 
trusted myself to you. I had no wish but to end my 
life in your service. And what was my reward? 
Stripped of all that you had bestowed on me, the 

25 key, the order, the pension, I was forced to fly from 
your territories. I was hunted as if I had been a de- 
serter from 3^our grenadiers. I was arrested, in- 
sulted, plundered. IMy niece was dragged through 
the mud of Frankfort by your soldiers, as if she had 

30 been some wretched follower of your camp. You have 
great talents. You have good qualities. But you 
have one odious vice. You delight in the abasement 
of your fellow-creatures. You have brought disgrace 
on the name of philosopher. You have given some 

35 colour to the slandors of tlie bigots, who sav that no 



138 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

confidence can be placed in the justice or humanity of 
those who reject the Christian faith." Then the King 
answers, with less heat but equal severity — ''You 
know that you behaved shamefully in Prussia. It 
was well for you that you had to deal with a man so 5 
indulgent to the infirmities of genius as I am. You 
richly deserved to see the inside of a dungeon. Your 
talents are not more widely known than your faith- 
lessness and your malevolence. The grave itself is 
no asylum from your spite. Maupertuis is dead ; but lo 
you still go on calumniating and deriding him, as if 
you had not made him miserable enough while he 
was living. Let us have no more of this. And, above 
all, let me hear no more of your niece. I am sick to 
death of her name. I can bear with your faults for 15 
the sake of your merits; but she has not written 
Mahomet or Merope." 

An explosion of this kind, it might be supposed, 
would necessarily put an end to all amicable communi- 
cation. But it was not so. After every outbreak of 20 
ill humour this extraordinary pair became more lov- 
ing than before, and exchanged compliments and 
assurances of mutual regard with a wonderful air of 
sincerity. 

It may well be supposed that men who wrote thus 25 
to each other, were not very guarded in what they said 
of each other. The English ambassador, ]\Iitchell, 
who knew that the King of Prussia was constantly 
writing to Voltaire with the greatest freedom on the 
most important subjects, was amazed to hear his 30 
Majesty designate this highly favoured correspondent 
as a bad-hearted fellow, the greatest rascal on the face 
of the earth. And the language which the poet held 
about the King was not much more respectful. 

It would probably have puzzled Voltaire himself 35 



FEEDERIC THE GEEAT. 139 

to say what was his real feeling towards Frederic. 
It was compounded of all sentiments, from enmity to 
friendship, and from scorn to admiration; and the 
proportions in which these elements were mixed, 

5 changed every moment. The old patriarch resembled 
the spoiled child who screams, stamps, cuffs, laughs, 
kisses, and cuddles within one quarter of an hour. 
His resentment was not extinguished ; yet he was not 
without sympathy for his old friend. As a French- 

10 man, he wished success to the arms of his country. 
As a philosopher, he was anxious for the stability of 
a throne on which a philosopher sat. He longed both 
to save and to humble Frederic. There was one way, 
and only one, in which all his conflicting feelings 

15 could at once be gratified. If Frederic were preserved 
by the interference of France, if it were known that 
for that interference he was indebted to the mediation 
of Voltaire, this would indeed be delicious revenge; 
this would indeed be to heap coals of fire on that 

20 haughty head. Nor did the vain and restless poet 
think it impossible that he might, from his hermitage 
near the Alps, dictate peace to Europe. D'Estrees 
had quitted Hanover, and the command of the French 
army had been intrusted to the Duke of Richelieu, a 

25 man whose chief distinction was derived from his 
success in gallantry. Richelieu was in truth the most 
eminent of that race of seducers by profession, who 
furnished Crebillon the younger and La Clos with 
models for their heroes. In his earlier days the royal . 

30 house itself had not been secure from his presump- 
tuous love. He was believed to have carried his con- 
quests into the family of Orleans ; and some suspected 
that he was not unconcerned in the mysterious re- 
morse which embittered the last hours of the charm- 

85 ing mother of Louis the Fifteenth. But the Duke was 



140 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

now sixty years old. With a heart deeply corrupted 
by vice, a head long accustomed to think only on 
trifles, an impaired constitution, an impaired fortune, 
and, worst of all, a very red nose, he was entering on 
a dull, frivolous, and unrespected old age. Without 5 
one qualification for military command, except that 
personal courage which was common between him 
and the whole nobility of France, he had been placed 
at the head of the army of Hanover ; and in that sit- 
uation he did his best to repair, by extortion audio 
corruption, the injury which he had done to his prop- 
erty by a life of dissolute profusion. 

The Duke of Richelieu to the end of his life hated 
the philosophers as a sect, not for those parts of their 
system which a good and wise man would have con- 15 
demned, but for their virtues, for their spirit of free 
inquiry, and for their hatred of those social abuses of 
which he was himself the personification. But he, 
like many of those who thought with him, excepted 
Voltaire from the list of proscribed writers. He fre- 20 
quently sent flattering letters to Ferney. He did the 
patriarch the honour to borrow money of him, and 
even carried his condescending friendship so far as to 
forget to pay the interest. Voltaire thought that it 
might be in his power to bring the Duke and the King 25 
of Prussia into communication with each other. He 
•wrote earnestly to both ; and he so far succeeded that 
a correspondence between them was commenced. 

But it was to very different means that Frederic was 
to owe his deliverance. At the beginning of Novem-30 
ber, the net seemed to have closed completely round 
him. The Russians were in the field, and were spread- 
ing devastation through his eastern provinces. Silesia 
was overrun by the Austrians. A great French army 
was advancing from the west under the command of 35 



FEEDERIC THE GREAT. 141 

Marshal Soubise, a prince of the great Armorican 
house of Rohan. Berlin itself had been taken and 
plundered by the Croatians. Such was the situation 
from which Frederic extricated himself, with dazzling 

5 glory, in the short space of thirty days. 

lie marched first against Soubise. On the fifth of 
November the armies met at Rosbach. The French 
were two to one; but they were ill disciplined, and 
their general was a dunce. The tactics of Frederic, 

10 and the well-regulated valour of the Prussian troops, 
obtained a complete victory. Seven thousand of the 
invaders were made prisoners. Their guns, their col- 
ours, their baggage, fell into the hands of the con- 
querors. Those who escaped fled as confusedly as a 

15 mob scattered by cavalry. Victorious in the West, 
the King turned his arms towards Silesia. In that 
quarter every thing seemed to be lost. Breslau had 
fallen ; and Charles of Loraine, with a mighty power, 
held the whole province. On the fifth of December, 

20 exactly one month after the battle of Rosbach, Fred- 
eric, with forty thousand men, and Prince Charles, 
at the head of not less than sixty thousand, met at 
Leuthen, hard by Breslau. The King, who was, in 
general, perhaps too much inclined to consider the 

25 common soldier as a mere machine, resorted, on this 
great day, to means resembling those which Bonaparte 
afterwards employed with such signal success for the 
purpose of stimulating military enthusiasm. The 
principal officers were convoked. Frederic addressed 

30 them with great force and pathos ; and directed them 
. to speak to their men as he had spoken to them. 
When the armies were set in battle array, the Prus- 
sian troops were in a state of fierce excitement; but 
their excitement showed itself after the fashion of a 

35 grave people. The columns advanced to the attack 



142 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

chanting, to the sound of drums and fifes, the rude 
hymns of the okl Saxon Sternholds. They had never 
fought so well ; nor had the genius of their chief ever 
been so conspicuous. ''That battle," said Napoleon, 
'Svas a masterpiece. Of itself it is sufficient to entitle 5 
Frederic to a place in the first rank among generals. ' ' 
The victory was complete. Twenty-seven thousand 
Austrians were killed, wounded, or taken ; fifty stand 
of colours, a hundred guns, four thousand waggons, 
fell into the hands of the Prussians. Breslau opened lo 
its gates ; Silesia was reconquered ; Charles of Loraine 
retired to hide his shame and sorrow at Brussels ; and 
Frederic allowed his troops to take some repose in 
winter quarters, after a campaign, to the vicissitudes 
of w^hich it will be difficult to find any parallel in 15 
ancient or modern history. 

The King's fame filled all the world. He had, 
during the last year, maintained a contest, on terms 
of advantage, against three powers, the weakest of 
which had more than three times his resources. He 20 
had fought four great pitched battles against superior 
forces. Three of these battles he had gained; and 
the defeat of Kolin, repaired as it had been, rather 
raised than lowered his military renown. The victory 
of Leuthen is, to this day, the proudest on the roll of 25 
Prussian fame. Leipsic indeed, and Waterloo, pro- 
duced consequences more important to mankind. But 
the glory of Leipsic must be shared by the Prussians 
with the Austrians and Eussians; and at Waterloo 
the British Infantry bore the burden and heat of the 30 
day. The victory of Rosbach was, in a military point • 
of view, less honourable than that of Leuthen; for it 
was gained over an incapable general and a disorgan- 
ized army ; but the moral effect which it produced was 
immense. All the preceding triumphs of Frederic 35 



FEEDEEIC THE GREAT. 143 

had been triumphs over Germans, and could excite 
no emotions of national pride among the German peo- 
ple. It was impossible that a Hessian or a Hanover- 
ian could feel any patriotic exultation at hearing that 

5 Pomeranians had slaughtered Moravians, or that 
Saxon banners had been hung in the churches of Ber- 
lin. Indeed, though the military character of the Ger- 
mans justly stood high throughout the world, they 
could boast of no great day which belonged to them 

10 as a people ; of no Agincourt, of no Bannockburn. 
Most of their victories had been gained over each 
other; and their most splendid exploits against for- 
eigners had been achieved under the command of 
Eugene, who was himself a foreigner. The news of 

15 the battle of Rosbach stirred the blood of the whole 
of the mighty population from the Alps to the Baltic, 
and from the borders of Courland to those of Loraine. 
Westphalia and Lower Saxony had been deluged by 
a great host of strangers, whose speech was unintel- 

20 ligible, and whose petulant and licentious manners 
had excited the strongest feelings of disgust and 
hatred. That great host had been put to flight by a 
small band of German warriors, led by a prince of 
German blood on the side of father and mother, and 

25 marked by the fair hair and clear blue eye of Ger- 
many. Never since the dissolution of the empire of 
Charlemagne, had the Teutonic race won such a field 
against the French. The tidings called forth a gen- 
eral burst of delight and pride from the whole of the 

30 great family which spoke the various dialects of the 
ancient language of Arminius. The fame of Frederic 
began to supply, in some degree, the place of a com- 
mon government and of a common capital. It became 
a rallying point for all true Germans, a subject of 

35 mutual congratulation to the Bavarian and the West- 



144 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

phalian, to the citizen of Frankfort and the citizen of 
Nuremburg. Then first it was manifest that the Ger- 
mans were truly a nation. Then first was discernible 
that patriotic spirit which, in 1813, achieved the great 
deliverance of central Europe, and which still guards, 5 
and long will guard, against foreign ambition the old 
freedom of the Rhine. 

Nor were the effects produced by that celebrated 
day merely political. The greatest masters of German 
poetry and eloquence have admitted that, though the lo 
great King neither valued nor understood his native 
language, though he looked on France as the only seat 
of taste and philosophy, yet, in his own despite, he 
did much to emancipate the genius of his countrymen 
from the foreign yoke; and that, in the act of van- 15 
quishing Soubise, he was, unintentionally, rousing 
the spirit which soon began to question the literary 
precedence of Boileau and Voltaire. So strangely do 
events confound all the plans of man. A prince who 
read only French, who wrote only French, who as- 20 
pired to rank as a French classic, became, quite 
unconsciously, the means of liberating half the Con- 
tinent from the dominion of that French criticism of 
which he was himself, to the end of his life, a slave. 
Yet even the enthusiasm of Germany in favour of 25 
Frederic hardly equalled the enthusiasm of England. 
The birth-day of our ally was celebrated with as much 
enthusiasm as that of our own sovereign ; and at night 
the streets of London were in a blaze with illumina- 
tions. Portraits of the hero of Rosbach, w4th hisso 
cocked hat and long pigtail, were in every house. An 
attentive observer will, at this day, find in the par- 
lours of old-fashioned inns, and in the portfolios of 
print-sellers, twenty portraits of Frederic for one of 
George the Second. The sign painters were every- 35 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 145 

where employed in touching up Admiral Vernon into 
the King of Prussia. This enthusiasm was strong 
among religious people, and especially among the 
]\Iethodists, who knew that the French and Austrians 

5 were Papists, and supposed Frederic to be the Joshua 
or Gideon of the Reformed Faith. One of Whitfield's 
hearers, on the day on which thanks for the battle of 
Leuthen were returned at the Tabernacle, made the 
following exquisitely ludicrous entry in a diary, part 

10 of which has come down to us: ''The Lord stirred 
up the King of Prussia and his soldiers to pray. They 
kept three fast days, and spent about an hour pray- 
ing and singing psalms before they engaged the 
enemy. ! how good it is to pray and fight ! ' ' Some 

15 young Englishmen of rank proposed to visit Germany 
as volunteers, for the purpose of learning the art 
of war under the greatest of commanders. This last 
proof of British attachment and admiration, Frederic 
politely but firmly declined. His camp was no place 

20 for amateur students of military science. The Prus- 
sian discipline was rigorous even to cruelty. The of- 
ficers, while in the field, were expected to practise an 
abstemiousness and self-denial, such as was hardly 
surpassed by the most rigid monastic orders. How- 

25 ever noble their birth, however high their rank in 
the service, they were not permitted to eat from any 
thing better than pewter. It was a high crime even 
in a count and field-marshal to have a single silver 
spoon among his baggage. Gay young Englishmen of 

30 twenty thousand a year, accustomed to liberty and 
to luxury, would not easily submit to these Spartan 
restraints. The King could not venture to keep them 
in order as he kept his own subjects in order. Situ- 
ated as he was with respect to England, he could not 

35 well imprison or shoot refractory Howards and Cav- 



146 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

endishes. On the other hand, the example of a few 
fine gentlemen, attended by chariots and livery 
servants, eating in plate, and drinking Champagne 
and Tokay, was enough to corrupt his whole army. 
He thought it best to make a stand at first, and 5 
civilly refused to admit such dangerous companions 
among his troops. 

The help of England v/as bestowed in a manner 
far more useful and more acceptable. An annual 
subsidy of near seven hundred thousand pounds 10 
enabled the King to add probably more than fifty 
thousand men to his army. Pitt, now at the height 
of power and popularity, undertook the task of de- 
fending Western Germany against France, and asked 
Frederic only the loan of a general. The general 15 
selected was Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, who 
had attained high distinction in the Prussian service. 
He was put at the head of an army, partly English, 
partly Hanoverian, partly composed of mercenaries 
hired from the petty princes of the empire. He soon 20 
vindicated the choice of the two allied courts, and 
proved himself the second general of the age. 

Frederic passed the winter at Breslau, in reading, 
writing, and preparing for the next campaign. The 
havoc which the war had made among his troops was 25 
rapidly repaired; and in the spring of 1758 he was 
again ready for the conflict. Prince Ferdinand kept 
the French in check. The King in the mean time, 
after attempting against the Austrians some opera- 
tions which led to no very important results, marched 30 
to encounter the Russians, who, slaying, burning, and 
wasting wherever they turned, had penetrated into 
the heart of his realm. He gave them battle at Zorn- 
dorf, near Frankfort on the Oder. The fight was long 
and bloody. Quarter was neither given nor taken ; 35 



FEEDERIC THE GREAT. 147 

for the Germans and Scythians regarded each other 
with bitter aversion, and the sight of the ravages 
committed by the half-savage invaders had incensed 
the King and his army. The Russians vi^ere over- 

5 thrown with great slaughter ; and for a few months 
no further danger was to be apprehended from the 
east. 

A day of thanksgiving was proclaimed by the King, 
and was celebrated with pride and delight by his 

10 people. The rejoicings in England were not less en- 
thusiastic or less sincere. This may be selected as 
the point of time at which the military glory of Fred- 
eric reached the zenith. In the short space of three 
quarters of a year he had won three great battles over 

15 the armies of three mighty and warlike monarchies, 
France, Austria and Russia. 

But it was decreed that the temper of that strong 
mind should be tried by both extremes of fortune in 
rapid succession. Close upon this series of triumphs 

20 came a series of disasters, such as would have blighted 
the fame and broken the heart of almost any other 
commander. Yet Frederic, in the midst of his calami- 
ties, was still an object of admiration to his subjects, 
his allies, and his enemies. Overwhelmed by ad- 

25 versity, sick of life, he still maintained the contest, 
greater in defeat, in flight, and in what seemed hope- 
less ruin, than on the fields of his proudest victories. 
Having vanquished the Russians, he hastened into 
Saxony to oppose the troops of the Empress Queen, 

30 commanded by Daun, the most cautious, and Lau- 
dohn, the most inventive and enterprising of her 
generals. These two celebrated commanders agreed 
on a scheme, in which the prudence of the one and the 
vigour of the other seemed to have been happily com- 

35 bined. At dead of night they surprised the King in 



148 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

his camp at Hochkirchen. His presence of mind 
saved his troops from destruction ; but nothing could 
save them from defeat and severe loss. IMarshal 
Keith was among the slain. The first roar of the guns 
roused the noble exile from his rest, and he was in- 5 
stantly in the front of the battle. He received a 
dangerous wound, but refused to quit the field, and 
was in the act of rallying his broken troops, when an 
Austrian bullet terminated his chequered and event- 
ful life. 10 

The misfortune was serious. But of all generals 
Frederic understood best how to repair defeat, and 
Daun understood least how to improve victory. In a 
few days the Prussian army was as formidable as 
before the battle. The prospect was, however, gloomy. 15 
An Austrian army under General Harsch had in- 
vaded Silesia, and invested the fortress of Neisse. 
Daun, after his success at Hochkirchen, had written 
to Harsch in very confident terms: — "Go on with 
your operations against Neisse. Be quite at ease as 20 
to the King. I will give a good account of him.'^ 
In truth, the position of the Prussians was full of 
difficulties. Between them and Silesia lay the vic- 
torious army of Daun. It was not easy for them to 
reach Silesia at all. If they did reach it, they left 25 
Saxony exposed to the Austrians. But the vigour and 
activity of Frederic surmounted every obstacle. He 
made a circuitous march of extraordinary rapidity, 
passed Daun, hastened into Silesia, raised the siege of 
Neisse, and drove Harsch into Bohemia. Daun availed 30 
himself of the King's absence to attack Dresden. The 
Prussians defended it desperately. The inhabitants 
of that wealthy and polished capital begged in vain 
for mercy from the garrison within, and from the 
besiegers without. The beautiful suburbs were burned 35 



FEEDEEIC THE GEEAT. 149 

to the ground. It was clear that the town, if won at 
all, would be won street by street by the bayonet. At 
this conjuncture, came news that Frederic, having 
cleared Silesia of his enemies, was returning by forced 

5 marches into Saxony. Daun retired from before 
Dresden, and fell back into the Austrian territories. 
The King, over heaps of ruins, made his triumphant 
entry into the unhappy metropolis, which had so 
cruelly expiated the weak and perfidious policy of its 

10 sovereign. It was now the twentieth of November. 
The cold weather suspended military operations ; and 
the King again took up his winter quarters at 
Breslau. 

The third of the seven terrible years was over ; and 

15 Frederic still stood his ground. He had been recently 
tried by domestic as well as by military disasters. On 
the fourteenth of October, the day on which he was 
defeated at Hochkirchen, the day on the anniversary 
of which, forty-eight years later, a defeat far more 

20 tremendous laid the Prussian monarchy in the dust, 
died Wilhelmina, Margravine of Bareuth, From the 
accounts which we have of her, by her own hand, and 
by the hands of the most discerning of her contem- 
poraries, we should pronounce her to have been coarse, 

25 indelicate, and a good hater, but not destitute of kind 
and generous feelings. Her mind, naturally strong 
and observant, had been highly cultivated; and she 
was, and deserved to be, Frederic's favourite sister. 
He felt the loss as much as it was in his iron nature 

30 to feel the loss of any thing but a province or a battle. 
At Breslau, during the winter, he was indefatigable 
in his poetical labours. The most spirited lines, per- 
haps, that he ever wrote, are to be found in a bitter 
lampoon on Louis and IMadame de Pompadour, which 

35 he composed at this time, and sent to Voltaire. The 



150 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

verses were, indeed, so good, that Voltaire was afraid 
that he might himself be suspected of having written 
them, or at least of having corrected them ; and partly 
from fright, partly, we fear, from love of mischief, 
sent them to the Duke of Choiseul, then prime min-5 
ister of France. Choiseul very wisely determined to 
encounter Frederic at Frederic's own weapons, and 
applied for assistance to Palissot, who had some skill 
as a versifier, and some little talent for satire. Pa- 
lissot produced some very stinging lines on the moral lo 
and literary character of Frederic, and these lines the 
Duke sent to Voltaire. This war of couplets, follow- 
ing close on the carnage of Zorndorf and the con- 
flagration of Dresden, illustrates well the strangely 
compounded character of the King of Prussia. 15 

At this moment he was assailed by a new enemy. 
Benedict the Fourteenth, the best and wisest of the 
two hundred and fifty successors of St. Peter, was 
no more. During the short interval between his 
reign and that of his disciple Ganganelli, the chief 20 
seat in the Church of Rome was filled by Rezzonico, 
who took the name of Clement the Thirteenth. This 
absurd priest determined to try what the weight of 
his authority could effect in favour of the orthodox 
Maria Theresa against a heretic king. At the higli 25 
mass on Christmas-day, a sword with a rich belt and 
scabbard, a hat of crimson velvet lined with ermine, 
and a dove of pearls, the mystic symbol of the Divine 
Comforter, were solemnly blessed by the supreme pon- 
tiff, and were sent with great ceremony to Marshal 30 
Daun, the conqueror of Kolin and Hochkirchen. This 
mark of favour had more than once been bestowed by 
the Popes on the great champions of the faith. Similar 
honours had been paid, more than six centuries earlier, 
by Urban the Second to Godfrey of Bouillon. Similar 35 



FKEDEEIC THE GREAT. 151 

honours had been conferred on Alba for destroying 
the liberties of the Low Countries, and on John So- 
biesky after the deliverance of Vienna. But the 
presents which were received with profound reverence 

5 by the Baron of the Holy Sepulchre in the eleventh 
century, and which had not wholly lost their value 
even in the seventeenth century, appeared inexpress- 
ibly ridiculous to a generation which read IMontes- 
quieu and Voltaire. Frederic wrote sarcastic verses 

10 on the gifts, the giver, and the receiver. But the 
public wanted no prompter; and an universal roar of 
laughter from Petersburg to Lisbon reminded the 
Vatican that the age of crusades was over. 

The fourth campaign, the most disastrous of all the 

15 campaigns of this fearful war, had now opened. The 
Austrians filled Saxony and menaced Berlin. The 
Russians defeated the King^s generals on the Oder, 
threatened Silesia, effected a junction with Laudohn, 
and intrenched themselves strongly at Kunersdorf. 

20 Frederic hastened to attack them. A great battle 
was fought. During the earlier part of the day every 
thing yielded to the impetuosity of the Prussians, and 
to the skill of their chief. The lines were forced. 
Half the Russian guns were taken. The King sent 

25 off a courier to Berlin with two lines, announcing a 
complete victory. But, in the mean time, the stub- 
born Russians, defeated yet unbroken, had taken up 
their stand in an almost impregnable position, on an 
eminence where the Jews of Frankfort were wont to 

30 bury their dead. Here the battle recommenced. The 
Prussian infantry, exhausted by six hours of hard 
fighting under a sun which equalled the tropical heat, 
were yet brought up repeatedly to the attack, but in 
vain. The King led three charges in person. Two 

35 horses were killed under him. The officers of his staff 



152 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

fell all round him. His coat was pierced by several 
bullets. All was in vain. His infantry was driven 
back with frightful slaughter. Terror began to spread 
fast from man to man. At that moment, the fiery 
cavalry of Laudohn, still fresh, rushed on the waver- 5 
ing ranks. Then followed an universal rout. Fred- 
eric himself was on the point of falling into the hands 
of the conquerors, and was with difficulty saved by a 
gallant officer, who, at the head of a handful of Hus- 
sars, made good a diversion of a few minutes. Shat-10 
tered in body, shattered in mind, the King reached 
that night a village which the Cossacks had plun- 
dered; and there, in a ruined and deserted farm- 
house, flung himself on a heap of straw. He had sent 
to Berlin a second despatch very different from his 15 
first : — ' ' Let the royal family leave Berlin. Send the 
archives to Potsdam. The town may make terms 
with the enemy." 

The defeat was, in truth, overwhelming. Of fifty 
thousand men who had that morning marched under 20 
the black eagles, not three thousand remained to- 
gether. The King bethought him again of his corro- 
sive sublimate, and wrote to bid adieu to his friends, 
and to give directions as to the measures to be taken 
in the event of his death: — *'I have no resource left "25 
— such is the language of one of his letters — "all is 
lost. I will not survive the ruin of my country. Fare- 
well for ever.'' 

But ]the mutual jealousies of the confederates pre- 
vented them from following up their victory. They 30 
lost a few days in loitering and squabbling ; and a few 
days, improved by Frederic, were worth more than 
the years of other men. On the morning after the 
battle, he had got together eighteen thousand of his 
troops. Very soon his force amounted to thirty thou- 35 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 153 

sand. Guns were procured from the neighbouring 
fortresses, and there was again an army. Berlin was 
for the present safe; but calamities came pouring on 
the King in uninterrupted succession. One of his 

5 generals, with a large body of troops, was taken at 
IMaxen; another was defeated at Meissen; and when 
at length the campaign of 1759 closed, in the midst of 
a rigorous winter, the situation of Prussia appeared 
desperate. The only consoling circumstance was, 

10 that, in the West, Ferdinand of Brunswick had been 
more fortunate than his master; and by a series of 
exploits, of which the battle of Minden was the most 
glorious, had removed all apprehension of danger 
on the side of France. 

15 The fifth year was now about to commence. It 
seemed impossible that the Prussian territories, re- 
peatedly devastated by hundreds of thousands of in- 
vaders, could longer support the contest. But the 
King carried on war as no European power has ever 

20 carried on war, except the Committee of Public 
Safety during the great agony of the French Revolu- 
tion. He governed his kingdom as he would have 
governed a besieged town, not caring to what extent 
property was destroyed, or the pursuits of civil life 

25 suspended, so that he did but make head against the 
enemy. As long as there was a man left in Prussia, 
that man might carry a musket ; as long as there was 
a horse left, that horse might draw artillery. The 
coin was debased, the civil functionaries were left un- 

gopaid; in some provinces civil government altogether 
ceased to exist. But there were still rye-bread and 
potatoes; there were still lead and gunpowder; and, 
while the means of sustaining and destroying life 
remained, Frederic was determined to fight it out to 

35 the very last. 



154 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

The earlier part of the campaign of 1760 was 1111- 
favourable to him. Berlin was again occupied by the 
enemy. Great contributions were levied on the in- 
habitants, and the royal palace was plundered. But 
at length, after two years of calamity, victory came 5 
back to his arms. At Lignitz he gained a great battle 
over Laudohn; at Torgau, after a day of horrible 
carnage, he triumphed over Daun. The fifth year 
closed, and still the event was in suspense. In the 
countries where the war had raged, the misery and 10 
exhaustion were more appalling than ever; but still 
there were left men and beasts, arms and food, and 
still Frederic fought on. In truth he had now been 
baited into savageness. His heart was ulcerated with 
hatred. The implacable resentment with which his 15 
enemies persecuted him, though originally provoked 
by his own unprincipled ambition, excited in him a 
thirst for vengeance which he did not even attempt 
to conceal. '*It is hard," he says in one of his let- 
ters, ''for man to bear what I bear. I begin to feel 20 
that, as the Italians say, revenge is a pleasure for the 
gods. My philosophy is worn out by suffering. I am 
no saint, like those of whom we read in the legends; 
and I will own that I should die content if only I 
could first inflict a portion of the misery which 1 25 
endure." 

Borne up by such feelings he struggled with various 
success, but constant glory, through the campaign of 
1761. On the whole, the result of this campaign was 
disastrous to Prussia. No great battle was gained by 30 
the enemy; but, in spite of the desperate bounds of 
the hunted tiger, the circle of pursuers was fast clos- 
ing round him. Laudohn had surprised the important 
fortress of Schweidnitz. With that fortress, half of 
Silesia, and the command of the most important de-35 



FEEDEEIC THE GEEAT. 155 

files through the mountains, had been transferred to 
the Austrians. The Russians had overpowered the 
King's generals in Pomerania. The country was so 
completely desolated that he began, by his own con- 

5 fession, to look round him with blank despair, unable 
to imagine where recruits, horses, or provisions were 
to be found. 

Just at this time two great events brought on a 
complete change in the relations of almost all the 

10 powers of Europe. One of those events was the re- 
tirement of Mr. Pitt from office; the other was the 
death of the Empress Elizabeth of Russia. 

The retirement of Pitt seemed to be an omen of 
utter ruin to the House of Brandenburg. His proud 

15 and vehement nature was incapable of any thing that 
looked like either fear or treachery. He had often 
declared that, while he was in power^ England should 
never make a peace of Utrecht, should never, for any 
selfish object, abandon an ally even in the last ex- 

20tremity of distress. The Continental war was his 
own war. He had been bold enough, he who in former 
times had attacked, with irresistible powers of ora- 
tory, the Hanoverian policy of Carteret, and the 
German subsidies of Newcastle, to declare that Han- 

25 over ought to be as dear to us as Hampshire, and 
that he would conquer America in Germany. He 
had fallen; and the power which he had exercised, 
not always with discretion, but always with vigour 
and genius, had devolved on a favourite who was the 

30 representative of the Tory party, of the party which 
had thwarted "William, which had persecuted J\Iarl- 
borough, and which had given up the Catalans to the 
vengeance of Philip of Anjou. To make peace with 
France, to shake off, with all, or more than, all, the 

35 speed compatible with decency, every Continental 



156 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

connection, these were among the chief objects of the 
new Minister. The policy then followed inspired 
Frederic with an unjust, but deep and bitter aver- 
sion to the English name, and produced effects Avhich 
are still felt throughout the civilised world. To that 5 
policy it was owing that, some years later, England 
could not find on the whole Continent a single ally to 
stand by her, in her extreme need, against the House 
of Bourbon. To that policy it was owing that Fred- 
eric, alienated from England, was compelled to con- lo 
nect himself closely, during his later years, with 
Russia, and was induced to 'assist in that great crime, 
the fruitful parent of other great crimes, the first 
partition of Poland. 

Scarcely had the retreat of Mr. Pitt deprived Prus- 15 
sia of her only friend, when the death of Elizabeth 
produced an entire revolution in the politics of the 
North. The Grand Duke Peter, her nephew, who 
now ascended the Russian throne, was not merely 
free from the prejudices which his aunt had enter- 20 
tained against Frederic, but was a worshipper, a 
servile imitator of the great King. The days of the 
new Czar's government were few and evil, but suf- 
ficient to produce a change in the whole state of 
Christendom. He set the Prussian prisoners at lib- 25 
erty, fitted them out decently, and sent them back to 
their master; he withdrew his troops from the 
provinces which Elizabeth had decided on incorporat- 
ing with her dominions; and he absolved all those 
Prussian subjects, w^ho had been compelled to swear 30 
fealty to Russia, from their engagements. 

Not content with concluding peace on terms favour- 
able to Prussia, he solicited rank in the Prussian 
service, » dressed himself in a Prussian uniform, wore 
the Black Eagle of Prussia on his breast, made prep- 35 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. I57 

arations for visiting Prussia, in order to have an 
interview with the object of his idolatry, and actually 
sent fifteen thousand excellent troops to reinforce the 
shattered army of Frederic. Thus strengthened, the 

5 King speedily repaired the losses of the preceding 
year, reconquered Silesia, defeated Daun at Buckers- 
dorf, invested and retook Schweidnitz, and, at the 
close of the year, presented to the forces of Maria 
Theresa a front as formidable as before the great re- 

10 verses of 1759. Before the end of the campaign, his 
friend, the emperor Peter, having by a series of ab- 
surd insults to the institutions, manners, and feelings 
of his people, united them in hostility to his person 
and government, was deposed and murdered. The 

15 Empress, who, under the title of Catharine the Sec- 
ond, now assumed the supreme power, was, at the 
commencement of her administration, by no means 
partial to Frederic, and refused to permit her troops 
to remain under his command. But she observed the 

20 peace made by her husband ; and Prussia was no 
longer threatened by danger from the East. 

England and France at the same time paired off 
together. They concluded a treaty, by which they 
bound themselves to observe neutrality with respect 

25 to the German war. Thus the coalitions on both sides 
were dissolved ; and the original enemies, Austria and 
Prussia, remained alone confronting each other. 

Austria had undoubtedly far greater means than 
Prussia, and was less exhausted by hostilities; yet it 

30 seemed hardly possible that Austria could effect alone 
what she had in vain attempted to effect when sup- 
ported by France on the one side, and by Russia on 
the other. Danger also began to menace the Imperial 
liouse from another quarter. The Ottoman Porte 

35 held threatening language, and a hundred thousand 



158 MACAUIiAY'S ESSAYS. 

Turks were mustered on the frontiers of Hungary. 
The proud and revengeful spirit of the Empress 
Queen at length gave way; and, in February, 1763, 
the peace of Hubertsburg put an end to the conflict 
which had, during seven years, devastated Germany. 5 
The King ceded nothing. The whole Continent in 
arms had proved unable to tear Silesia from that 
iron grasp. 

The war was over. Frederic was safe. His glory 
was beyond the reach of envy. If he had not made lo 
conquests as vast as those of Alexander, of Caesar, 
and of Napoleon, if he had not, on fields of battle, 
enjoyed the constant success of Marlborough and 
"Wellington, he had yet given an example unrivalled 
in history of what capacity and resolution can effect 15 
against the greatest superiority of power and the ut- 
most spite of fortune. He entered Berlin in triumph, 
after an absence of more than six years. The streets 
were brilliantly lighted up; and, as he passed along 
in an open carriage, with Ferdinand of Brunswick at 20 
his side, the multitude saluted him with loud praises 
and blessings. He was moved by those marks of at- 
tachment, and repeatedly exclaimed *'Long live my 
dear people! Long live my children !'* Yet, even 
in the midst of that gay spectacle, he could not but 25 
perceive everywhere the traces of destruction and 
decay. The city had been more than once plundered. 
The population had considerably diminished. Berlin, 
however, had suffered little when compared with most 
parts of the kingdom. The ruin of private fortunes, 30 
the distress of all ranks, was such as might appal the 
firmest mind. Almost every province had been the 
seat of war, and of war conducted with merciless 
ferocity. Clouds of Croatians had descended on Si- 
lesia. Tens of thousands of Cossacks had been let 35 



FEEDEKIC THE GEEAT. I59 

loose on Pomerania and Brandenburg. The mere 
contributions levied by the invaders amounted, it 
was said, to more than a hundred millions of dollars ; 
and the value of what they extorted was probably 

5 much less than the value of what they destroyed. The 
fields lay uncultivated. The very seed-corn had been 
devoured in the madness of hunger. Famine, and 
contagious maladies produced by famine, had swept 
away the herds and flocks; and there was reason to 

10 fear that a great pestilence among the human race was 
likely to follow in the train of that tremendous war. 
Nearly fifteen thousand houses had been burned to the 
ground. The population of the kingdom had in seven 
years decreased to the frightful extent of ten per 

15 cent. A sixth of the males capable of bearing arms 
had actually perished on the field of battle. In some 
districts, no labourers, except women, were seen in 
the fields at harvest-time. In others, the traveller 
passed shuddering through a succession of silent 

20 villages, in which not a single inhabitant remained. 
The currency had been debased ; the authority of laws 
and magistrates had been suspended ; the whole social 
system was deranged. For, during that convulsive 
struggle, every thing that was not military violence 

25 was anarchy. Even the army was disorganized. Some 
great generals, and a crowd of excellent officers, had 
fallen, and it had been impossible to supply their 
place. The difficulty of finding recruits had, towards 
the close of the war, been so great, that selection and 

30 rejection were impossible. Whole battalions were 
composed of deserters or of prisoners. It was hardly 
to be hoped that thirty years of repose and industry 
would repair the ruin produced by seven years of 
havoc. One consolatory circumstance, indeed, there 

35 was. No debt had been incurred. The burdens of 



160 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

the war had been terrible, almost insupportable ; but 
no arrear was left to embarrass the finances in time 
of peace. 

Here, for the present, we must pause. We have 
accompanied Frederic to the close of his career as as 
warrior. Possibly, when these Memoirs are completed, 
we may resume the consideration of his character, 
and give some account of his domestic and foreign 
policy, and of his private habits, during the many 
years of tranquillity which followed the Seven Years 'lo 
War. 



MADAME D'ARBLAY 

(January, 1813) 

Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay. Five vols. 8vo. 
London: 1842. 

Though the world saw and heard little of Madame 
D 'Ar])lay during the last forty years of her life, and 
though that little did not add to her fame, there were 
thousands, we believe, who felt a singular emotion 
5 when they learned that she was no longer among us. 
The news of her death carried the minds of men 
back at one leap over two generations, to the time 
when her first literary triumphs were won. All those 
whom we had been accustomed to revere as intellect- 

10 ual patriarchs seemed children when compared with 
her; for Burke had sat up all night to read her 
writings, and Johnson had pronounced her superior 
to Fielding, when Rogers was still a schoolboy, and 
Southey still in petticoats. Yet more strange did it 
seem that we should just have lost one whose name 

15 had been widely celebrated before anybody had heard 
of some illustrious men who, twenty, thirty, or forty 
years ago, were, after a long and splendid career, 
borne with honour to the grave. Yet so it was. 
Frances Burney was at the height of fame and popu- 

20 larity before Cowper had published his first volume, 
before Porson had gone up to college, before Pitt had 
taken his seat in the House of Commons, before the 
voice of Erskine had been once heard in Westminster 
Hall. Since the appearance of her first work, sixty- 

25 two years had passed; and this interval had been 

161 



162 MACAUIiAY'S ESSAYS. 

crowded, not only with political, but also with intel- 
lectual revolutions. Thousands of reputations had, 
during that period, sprung up, bloomed, withered, and 
disappeared. Ne^v kinds of composition had come 
into fashion, had got out of fashion, had been derided, 5 
had been forgotten. The fooleries of Delia Crusca, 
and the fooleries of Kotzebue, had for a time be- 
witched the multitude, but had left no trace behind 
them; nor had misdirected genius been able to save 
from decay the once flourishing schools of Godwin, lo 
of Darwin, and of RadclifPe. IMany books, written 
for temporary effect, had run through six or seven 
editions, and had then been gathered to the novels of 
Afra Behn, and the epic poems of Sir Richard Black- 
more. 'Yet the early works of Madame D'Arblay, inis 
spite of the lapse of years, in spite of the change of 
manners, in spite of the popularity deservedly ob- 
tained by some of her rivals, continued to hold a high 
place in the public esteem. She lived to be a classic. 
Time set on her fame, before she went hence, that 20 
seal which is seldom set except on the fame of the 
departed. Like Sir Condy Rackrent in the tale, she 
survived her own wake, and overheard the judgment 
of posterity. 

Having always felt a warm and sincere, though not 25 
a blind admiration for her talents, we rejoiced to 
learn that her Diary was about to be made public. 
Our hopes, it is true, were not unmixed with fears. 
We could not forget the fate of the IMemoirs of Dr. 
Burney, which were published ten years ago. That 30 
unfortunate book contained much that was curious 
and interesting. Yet it was received with a cry of 
disgust, and was speedily consigned to oblivion. The 
truth is, that it deserved its doom. It was written 
in Madame D'Arblay 's later style, the worst style 35 



MADAME D'AEBLAY. 163 

that has ever been known among men. No genius, 
no information, could save from proscription a book 
so written. We, therefore, opened the Diary with no 
small anxiety, trembling lest we should light upon 

5 some of that peculiar rhetoric which deforms almost 
every page of .the IMemoirs, and which it is impos- 
sible to read without a sensation made up of mirth, 
shame, and loathing. We soon, however, discovered 
to our great delight that this Diary was kept before 

10 Madame D'Arblay became eloquent. It is, for the 
most part, written in her earliest and best manner, 
in true woman's English, clear, natural, and lively. 
The two works are lying side by side before us; and 
we never turn from the Memoirs to the Diary without 

15 a sense of relief. The difference is as great as the 
difference between the atmosphere of a perfumer's 
shop, fetid with lavender water and jasmine soap, 
and the air of a heath on a fine morning in May. Both 
works ought to be consulted by every person who 

20 wishes to be well acquainted with the history of our 

literature and our manners. But to read the Diary 

is a pleasure; to read the Memoirs will always be a 

task. 

We may, perhaps, afford some harmless amusement 

25 to our readers, if we attempt, wdth the help of these 
two books, to give them an account of the most impor- 
tant years of IMadame D'Arblay 's life. 

She was descended from a family which bore the 
name of Macburney, and which, though probably of 

30 Irish origin, had been long settled in Shropshire, and 
was possessed of considerable estates in that county. 
Unhappily, many years before her birth, the Mac- 
burneys began, as if of set purpose and in a spirit of 
determined rivalry, to expose and ruin themselves. 

35 The heir apparent, Mr. James Macburney, offended 



164 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

his father by making a runaway match with an 
actress from Goodman's Fields. The old gentleman 
could devise no more judicious mode of wreaking 
vengeance on his undutiful boy than by marrying the 
cook. The cook gave birth to a son named Joseph, 5 
who succeeded to all the lands of the family, while 
James was cut off with a shilling. The favourite son, 
however, was so extravagant, that he soon became as 
poor as his disinherited brother. Both were forced 
to earn their bread by their labour. Joseph turned lo 
dancing master, and settled in Norfolk. James struck 
off the ]\Iac from the beginning of his name, and set 
up as a portrait painter at Chester. Here he had a 
son named Charles, well known as the author of the 
History of Music, and as the father of two remarkable is 
children, of a son distinguished by learning, and of 
a daughter still more honourably distinguished by 
genius. 

Charles early showed a taste for that art, of which, 
at a later period, he became the historian. He was 20 
apprenticed to a celebrated musician in London, and 
applied himself to study with vigour and success. He 
soon found a kind and munificent patron in Fulke 
Greville, a highborn and highbred man, who seems 
to have had in large measure all the accomplishments 25 
and all the follies, all the virtues and all the vices, 
which, a hundred years ago, were considered as mak- 
ing up the character of a fine gentleman. Under 
such protection, the young artist had every prospect 
of a brilliant career in the capital. But his health 3c 
failed. It became necessary for him to retreat from 
the smoke and river fog of London, to the pure air 
of the coast. He accepted the place of organist at 
Lynn, and settled at that town with a young lady 
who had recently become his wife. 35 



MADAME D'AEBLAY. 165 

At Lynn, in June, 1752, Frances Burney was born. 
Nothing in her childhood indicated that she would, 
while still a young woman, have secured for herself 
an honourable and permanent place among English 

5 writers. She was shy and silent. Her brothers and 
sisters called her a dunce, and not without some show 
of reason ; for at eight years old she did not know her 
letters. 

In 1760, ]\Ir. Burney quitted Lynn for London, and 

10 took a house in Poland Street ; a situation which had 
been fashionable in the reign of Queen Anne, but 
which, since that time, had been deserted by most of 
its wealthy and noble inhabitants. He afterwards 
resided in Saint Martin's Street, on the south side of 

15 Leicester Square. His house there is still well known, 
and will continue to be well known as long as our 
island retains any trace of civilisation ; for it was the 
dwelling of Newton, and the square turret which dis- 
tinguishes it from all the surrounding buildings was 

20 Newton 's observatory. 

Mr. Burney at once obtained as many pupils of the 
most respectable description as he had time to attend, 
and was thus enabled to support his family, modestly 
indeed, and frugally, but in comfort and independ- 

25ence. His professional merit obtained for him the 
degree of Doctor of Music from the University of 
Oxford ; and his works on subjects connected with his 
art gained for him a place, respectable, though cer- 
tainly not eminent, among men of letters. 

30 The progress of the mind of Frances Burney, from 
her ninth to her twenty-fifth year, well deserves to 
be recorded. When her education had proceeded no 
further than the hornbook, she lost her mother, and 
thenceforward she educated herself. Her father ap- 

35 pears to have been as bad a father as a very honest, 



266 macaulay's essays. 

affectionate, and sweet tempered man can well be. He 
loved his daughter dearly ; but it never seems to have 
occurred to him that a parent has other duties to per- 
form to children than that of fondling them. It would 
indeed have been impossible for him to superintend^ 
their education himself. His professional engage- 
ments occupied him all day. At seven in the morning 
he began to attend his pupils, and, when London was 
full, was sometimes employed in teaching till eleven 
at night. He was often forced to carry in his pocket 
a tin box of sandwiches, and a bottle of wine and 
water, on which he dined in a hackney coach, while 
hurrying from one scholar to another. Two of liis 
daughters he sent to a seminary at Paris; but he 
imagined that Frances w^ould run some risk of being ^^ 
perverted from the Protestant faith if she were edu- 
cated in a Catholic country, and he therefore kept 
her at home. No governess, no teacher of any art or 
of any language, was provided for her. But one of 
her sisters showed her how to write ; and, before she 20 
was fourteen, she began to find pleasure in reading. 

It was not, however, by reading that her intellect 
was formed. Indeed, when her best novels were pro- 
duced, her knowledge of books was very small. When 
at the height of her fame, she was unacquainted with 25 
the most celebrated works of Voltaire and Moliere; 
and, what seems still more extraordinary, had never 
heard or seen a line of Churchill, who, when she was 
a girl, was the most popular of living poets. It is 
particularly deserving of observation that she appears 30 
to have been by no means a novel reader. Her father's 
library was large; and he had admitted into it so 
many books wiiich rigid moralists generally exclude 
that he felt uneasy, as he afterwards owned, when 
Johnson began to examine the shelves. But in the 35 



MADAME D'ARBLAY. Igy 

whole collection there was only a single novel, Field- 
ing's Amelia. 

An education, however, which to most girls would 
have been useless, but which suited Fanny's mind bet- 

5 ter than elaborate culture, was in constant progress 
during her passage from childhood to womanhood. 
The great book of human nature was turned over be- 
fore her. Her father's social position was very 
peculiar. He belonged in fortune and station to the 

10 middle class. His daughters seemed to have been 
suffered to mix freely with those whom butlers and 
Avaiting maids call vulgar. We are told that they 
were in the habit of playing with the children of a 
wigmaker who lived in the adjoining house. Yet few 

15 nobles could assemble, in the most stately mansions of 
Grosvenor Square or Saint James's Square, a society 
so various and so brilliant as was sometimes to be 
found in Dr. Burney's cabin. His iliind, though not 
very powerful or capacious, was restlessly active; 

20 and, in the intervals of his professional pursuits, he 
had contrived to lay up much miscellaneous informa- 
tion. His attainments, the suavity of his temper, and 
the gentle simplicity of his manners, had obtained 
for him ready admission to the first literary circles. 

25 While he was still at Lynn, he had won Johnson's 
heart by sounding with honest zeal the praises of the 
English Dictionary. In London the two friends met 
frequently, and agreed most harmoniously. One tie, 
indeed, was wanting to their mutual attachment. 

3oBurney loved his own art passionately; and Johnson 
just knew the bell of Saint Clement's church from 
the organ. They had, however, many topics in com- 
mon; and on winter nights their conversations were 
sometimes prolonged till the fire had gone out, and 

35 the candles had burned away to the wicks. Burney's 



168 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

admiration of the powers which had produced Ras- 
selas and The Rambler bordered on idolatry. John- 
son, on the other hand, condescended to growl out 
that Burney was an honest fellow, a man whom it 
was impossible not to like. 5 

Garrick, too, was a frequent visitor in Poland 
Street and Saint Martin's Lane. That wonderful 
actor loved the society of children, partly from good 
nature, and partly from vanity. *The ecstasies of 
mirth and terror, which his gestures and play of 10 
countenance never failed to produce in a nursery, 
flattered him quite as much as the applause of mature 
critics. He often exhibited all his powers of mimicry 
for the amusement of the little Burneys, awed them 
by shuddering and crouching as if he saw a ghost, 15 
scared them by raving like a maniac in Saint Luke's, 
and then at once became an auctioneer, a chimney- 
sweeper, or an old woman, and made them laugh till 
the tears ran down their cheeks. 

But it w^ould be tedious to recount the names of all 20 
the men of letters and artists whom Frances Burney 
had an opportunity of seeing and hearing. Colman, 
Twining, Harris, Baretti, Hawkesworth, Reynolds, 
Barry, were among those who occasionally surrounded 
the tea table and supper tray at her father's modest 25 
dwelling. This was not all. The distinction which 
Dr. Burney had acquired as a musician, and as the 
historian of music, attracted to his house the most 
eminent musical performers of that age. The great- 
est Italian singers who visited England regarded him 3Q 
as the dispenser of fame in their art, and exerted 
themselves to obtain his suffrage. Pacchierotti be- 
came his intimate friend. The rapacious Agujari, 
who sang for nobody else under fifty pounds an air, 
sang her best for Dr. Burney without a fee; and in 35 



MADAME D'ARBLAY. 169 

the company of Dr. Biirney even the haughty and 
eccentric Gabrielli constrained herself to behave with 
civility. It was thus in his power to give, with 
scarcely any expense, concerts equal to those of the 

5 aristocracy. On such occasions the quiet street in 
which he lived was blocked up by coroneted chariots, 
and his little drawingroom was crowded with peers, 
peeresses, ministers, and ambassadors. On one eve- 
ning, of which we happen to have a full account, 

10 there were present Lord Mulgrave, Lord Bruce, Lord 
and Lady Edgecumbe, Lord Barrington from the 
War Office, Lord Sandwich from the Admiralty, 
Lord Ashburnham, with his gold key dangling from 
his pocket, and the French Ambassador, M. De 

15 Guignes, renowned for his fine person and for his suc- 
cess in gallantry. But the great show of the night 
was the Russian ambassador, Count Orloff, whose gi- 
gantic figure was all in a blaze with jewels, and in 
whose demeanour the untamed ferocity of the Scy- 

20 thian might be discerned through a thin varnish of 
French politeness. As he stalked about the small 
parlour, brushing the ceiling with his toupee, the girls 
whispered to each other, with mingled admiration and 
horror, that he was the favoured lover of his august 

25 mistress ; that he had borne the chief part in the 
revolution to which she owed her throne ; and that his 
huge hands, now glittering with diamond rings, had 
given the last squeeze to the windpipe of her unfor- 
tunate husband. 

30 With such illustrious guests as these were mingled 
all the most remarkable specimens of the race of lions, 
a kind of game which is hunted in London every 
spring with more than IMeltonian ardour and perse- 
verance. Bruce, who had washed down steaks cut 

35 from living oxen with water from the fountains of 



170 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

the Nile, came to swagger and talk about his travels. 
Omai lisped broken English, and made all the assem- 
bled musicians hold their ears by howling Otaheitean 
love songs, such as those with which Oberea charmed 
her Opano. . 5 

With the literary and fashionable society, which 
occasionally met under Dr. Burney's roof, Frances 
can scarcely be said to have mingled. She was not 
a musician, and could therefore bear no part in the 
concerts. She was shy almost to awkwardness, audio 
scarcely ever joined in the conversation. The slight- 
est remark from a stranger disconcerted her; and 
even the old friends of her father who tried to draw 
her out could seldom extract more than a Yes or a 
No. Her figure was small, her face not distinguished 15 
by beauty. She was therefore suffered to withdraw 
quietly to the background, and, unobserved herself, 
to observe all that passed. Her nearest relations were 
aware that she had good sense, but seem not to have 
suspected that, under her demure and bashful de-20 
portment, were concealed a fertile invention and a 
keen sense of the ridiculous. She had not, it is true, 
an eye for the fine shades of character, but every 
marked peculiarity instantly caught her notice and 
remained engraven on her imagination. Thus, while 25 
still a girl, she had laid up such a store of materials 
for fiction as few of those who mix much in the world 
are able to accumulate during a long life. She had 
watched and listened to people of every class, from 
princes and great officers of state down to artists liv-30 
ing in garrets, and poets familiar with subterranean 
cookshops. Hundreds of remarkable persons had 
passed in review before her, English, French, Ger- 
man, Italian, lords and fiddlers, deans of cathedrals 
and managers of theatres, travellers leading about 35 



MADAME D'AEBLAY. 171 

newly caught savages, and singing women escorted by- 
deputy husbands. 

So strong was the impression made on the mind of 
Frances by the society which she was in the habit of 

5 seeing and hearing, that she began to write little fic- 
titious narratives as soon as she could use her pen 
with ease, which, as we have said, was not very early. 
Her sisters were amused by her stories ; but Dr. Bur- 
ney knew nothing of their existence; and in another 

10 quarter her literary propensities met with serious dis- 
couragement. When she was fifteen, her father took 
a second wife. The new Mrs. Burney soon found out 
that her stepdaughter was fond of scribbling, and de- 
livered several good-natured lectures on the subject. 

15 The advice no doubt was well meant, and might have 
been given by the most judicious friend; for at that 
time, from causes to which we may hereafter advert, 
nothing could be more disadvantageous to a young 
lady than to be known as a novel-writer. Frances 

20 yielded, relinquished her favourite pursuit, and 
made a bonfire of all her manuscripts. 

She now hemmed and stitched from breakfast to 
dinner with scrupulous regularity. But the dinners 
of that time were early; and the afternoon was her 

25 own. Though she had given up novel-writing, she was 
still fond of using her pen. She began to keep a 
diary, and she corresponded largely with a person 
who seems to have had the chief share in the forma- 
tion of her mind. This was Samuel Crisp, an old 

30 friend of her father. His name, well known, near a 
century ago, in the most splendid circles of London, 
has long been forgotten. His history is, however, so 
interesting and instructive that it tempts us to ven- 
ture on a digression. 

35 Long before Frances Burney was born, Mr. Crisp 



172 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

had made his entrance into the world, with every adr 
vantage. He was well connected and well educated. 
His face and figure were conspicuously handsome; 
his manners were polished ; his fortune was eas}^ ; his 
character was without stain ; he lived in the best so- 5 
ciety ; he had read much ; he talked well ; his taste in 
literature, music, painting, architecture,, sculpture, 
was held in high esteem. Nothing that the world 
can give seemed to be wanting to his happiness and 
respectability, except that he should understand theio 
limits of his powers, and should not throw away dis- 
tinctions which were within his reach in the pursuit 
of distinctions which were unattainable. 

''It is an uncontrolled truth," says Swift, ''that 
no man ever made an ill figure who understood his is 
own talents, nor a good one who mistook them." 
Every day brings with it fresh illustrations of this 
weighty saying; but the best commentary that we re- 
member is the history of Samuel Crisp. ]\Ien like 
him have their proper place, and it is a most im-20 
portant one, in the Commonwealth of Letters. It is 
by the judgment of such men that the rank of authors 
is finally determined. It is neither to the multitude 
nor to the few who are gifted with great creative 
genius, that we are to look for sound critical decisions. 25 
The multitude, unacquainted with the best models, 
are captivated by whatever stuns and dazzles them. 
They deserted Mrs. Siddons to run after Master 
Betty; and they now prefer, we have no doubt, Jack 
Sheppard to Van Artevelde. A man of great original 30 
genius, on the other hand, a man who has attained 
to mastery in some high walk of art, is by no means 
to be implicitly trusted as a judge of the perform- 
ances of others. The erroneous decisions pronounced 
by such men are without number. It is commonly 35 



MADAME D'AEBLAY. I73 

supposed that jealousy makes them unjust. But a 
more creditable explanation may easily be found. The 
very excellence of a work shows that some of the 
faculties of the author have been developed at the 

5 expense of the rest ; for it is not given to the human 
intellect to expand itself widely in all directions at 
once, and to be at the same time gigantic and well 
proportioned. Whoever becomes pre-eminent in any 
art, nay, in any style of art, generally does so by 

10 devoting himself with intense and exclusive enthusi- 
asm to the pursuit of one kind of excellence. His 
perception of other kinds of excellence is therefore 
too often impaired. Out of his own department he 
praises and blames at random, and is far less to be 

15 trusted than the mere connoisseur, who produces 
nothing, and whose business is only to judge and en- 
joy. One painter is distinguished by his exquisite 
finishing. He toils day after day to bring the veins 
of a cabbage leaf, the folds of a lace veil, the wrinkles 

20 of an old woman's face, nearer and nearer to perfec- 
tion. In the time which he emploj^s on a square foot 
of canvass, a master of a different order covers the 
walls of a palace with gods burying giants under 
mountains, or makes the cupola of a church alive with 

25 seraphim and martyrs. The more fervent the pas- 
sion of each of these artists for his art, the higher the 
merit of each in his own line, the more unlikely it is 
that they will justly appreciate each other. Many 
persons who never handled a pencil probably do far 

30 more justice to ]\Iichael Angelo than would have been 
done by Gerard Douw, and far more justice to Ger- 
ard Douw than would have been done by Michael 
Angelo. 

It is the same with literature. Thousands, who 

35 have no spark of the genius of Dryden or Words 



174 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

worth, do to Dryden the justice which has never been 
done by Wordsworth, and to Wordsworth the justice 
which, we suspect, would never have been done by 
Dryden. Gray, Johnson, Richardson, Fielding, are 
all highly esteemed by the great body of intelligent 5 
and well informed men. But Gray could see no merit 
in Rasselas; and Johnson could see no merit in The 
Bard. Fielding thought Richardson a solemn prig; 
and Richardson perpetually expressed contempt and 
disgust for Fielding's lowness. lo 

Mr. Crisp seems, as far as we can judge, to have 
been a man eminently qualified for the useful office 
of a connoisseur. His talents and knowledge fitted 
him to appreciate justly almost every species of in- 
tellectual superiority. As an adviser he was inestim-15 
able. Nay, he might probably have held a respect- 
able rank as a writer, if he would have confined him- 
self to some department of literature in which noth- 
ing more than sense, taste, and reading was required. 
Unhappily he set his heart on being a great poet, 20 
wrote a tragedy in five acts on the death of Virginia, 
and offered it to Garrick, who was his personal 
friend. Garrick read, shook his head, and expressed 
a doubt whether it would be wise in Mr. Crisp to 
stake a reputation, which stood high, on the success 25 
of such a piece. But the author, blinded by ambition, 
set in motion a machinery such as none could long 
resist. His intercessors were the most eloquent man 
and the most lovely woman of that generation. Pitt 
was induced to read Virginia, and to pronounce it 30 
excellent. Lady Coventry, with fingers which might 
have furnished a model to sculptors, forced the manu- 
script into the reluctant hand of the manager; and, 
in the year 1754, the play was brought forward. 

Nothing that skill or friendship could do was omit- 35 



MADAME D'lEBLAY. I75 

ted. Garrick wrote both prologue and epilogue. The 
zealous friends of the author filled every box; and, 
by their strenuous exertions, the life of the play was 
prolonged during ten nights. But, though there was 

5 no clamorous reprobation, it was universally felt that 
the attempt had failed. "When Virginia was printed, 
the public disappointment was even greater than at 
the representation. The critics, the Monthly Re- 
viewers in particular, fell on plot, characters, and 

10 diction without mercy, but, we fear, not without jus- 
tice. We have never met with a copy of the play; 
but, if we may judge from the scene which is ex- 
tracted in the Gentleman's Magazine, and which does 
not appear to have been malevolently selected, we 

15 should say that nothing but the acting of Garrick, 
and the partiality of the audience, could have saved 
so feeble and unnatural a drama from instant dam- 
nation. 

The ambition of the poet w^as still unsubdued. 

20 When the London season closed, he applied himself 
vigorously to the work of removing blemishes. He 
does not seem to have suspected, what we are strongly 
inclined to suspect, that the whole piece was one 
blemish, and that the passages which were meant to 

25 be fine, were, in truth, bursts of that tame extrava- 
gance into which writers fall, when they set them- 
selves to be sublime and pathetic in spite of nature. 
He omitted, added, retouched, and flattered himself 
with hopes of a complete success in the following 

30 year; but in the following year, Garrick showed no 
disposition to bring the amended tragedy on the 
stage. Solicitation and remonstrance were tried in 
vain. Lady Coventry, drooping under that malady 
which seems ever to select what is loveliest for its 

35 prey, could render no assistance. The manager's Ian- 



176 MACAUL*AY'S ESSAYS. 

guage was civilly evasive; but his resolution was in- 
flexible. 

Crisp had committed a great error; but he had es- 
caped with a very slight penance. His play had not 
been hooted from the boards. It had, on the con- 5 
trary, been better received than many very estimable 
performances have been, than Johnson's Irene, for 
example, or Goldsmith's Goodnatured Man. Had 
Crisp been wise, he would have thought himself 
happy in having purchased self-knowledge so cheap. 10 
He would have relinquished, without vain repinings, 
the hope of poetical distinction, and would have 
turned to the many sources of happiness which he 
still possessed. Had he been, on the other hand, an 
unfeeling and unblushing dunce, he would have gone 15 
on writing scores of bad tragedies in defiance of cen- 
sure and derision. But he had too much sense to 
risk a second defeat, yet too little sense to bear 
his first defeat like a man. The fatal delusion 
that he was a great dramatist, had taken firm posses- 20 
sion of his mind. His failure he attributed to every 
cause except the true one. He complained of the ill 
will of Garrick, who appears to have done for the 
play everything that ability and zeal could do, and 
who, from selfish motives, would, of course, have been 25 
well pleased if Virginia had been as successful as the 
Beggar's Opera. Nay, ^Crisp complained of the lan- 
guor of the friends whose partiality had given him 
three benefit nights to which he had no claim. He 
complained of the injustice of the spectators, when, 30 
in truth, he ought to have been grateful for their un- 
exampled patience. He lost his temper and spirits, 
and became a cynic and a hater of mankind. From 
London he retired to Hampton, and from Hampton 
to a solitary and long deserted mansion, built on a 35 



MADAME D'ARBLAY. 177 

common in one of the wildest tracts of Surrey. No 
road, not even a slieepwalk, connected his lonely 
dwelling with the abodes of men. The place of his 
retreat was strictly concealed from his old associates. 

5 In the spring he sometimes emerged, and was seen 
at exhibitions and concerts in London. But he soon 
disappeared, and hid himself, with no society but his 
books, in his dreary hermitage. He survived his 
failure about thirty years. A new generation sprang 

10 up around him. No memory of his bad verses re- 
mained among men. His very name was forgotten. 
How completely the world had lost sight of him, 
will appear from a single circumstance. We looked 
for him in a copious Dictionary of Dramatic Authors 

15 published while he was still alive, and we found only 
that Mr. Henry Crisp, of the Custom House, had 
written a play called Virginia, acted in 1754. To 
the last, however, the unhappy man continued to 
brood over the injustice of the manager and the pit, 

20 and tried to convince himself and others that he had 
missed the highest literary honours, only because he 
had omitted some fine passages in compliance with 
Garrick's judgment. Alas, for human nature, that 
the wounds of vanity should smart and bleed so 

25 much longer than the wounds of affection ! Few peo- 
ple, we believe, whose nearest friends and relations 
died in 1754, had any acute feeling of the loss in 
1782. Dear sisters, and favourite daughters, and 
])rides snatched away before the honeymoon was 

30 passed, had been forgotten, or were remembered only 
with a tranquil regret. But Samuel Crisp was still 
mourning for his tragedy, like Rachel weeping for her 
children, and would not be comforted. "Never," 
such was his language twenty-eight years after his 

35 disaster, "never give up or alter a tittle unless it per- 



178 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

fectly coincides with your own inward feelings. I 
can say this to my sorrow and my cost. But mum ! ' ' 
Soon after these words were written, his life, a life 
which might have been eminently useful and happy, 
ended in the same gloom in which, during more than 5 
a quarter of a century, it had been passed. We 
have thought it worth while to rescue from oblivion 
this curious fragment of literary history. It seems 
to us at once ludicrous, melancholy, and full of 
instruction. 10 

Crisp was an old and very intimate friend of the 
Burneys. To them alone was confided the name of 
the desolate old hall in which he hid himself like a 
wild beast in a den. For them were reserved such 
remains of his humanity as had survived the failure 15 
of his play. Frances Burney he regarded as his 
daughter. He called her his Fannikin; and she in 
return called him her dear Daddy. In truth, he 
seems to have done much more than her real parents 
for the development of her intellect; for though he 20 
was a bad poet, he was a scholar, a thinker, and an 
excellent counsellor. He was particularly fond of 
the Concerts in Poland Street. They had, indeed, 
been commenced at his suggestion, and when he vis- 
ited London he constantly attended them. But when 25 
he grew old, and when gout, brought on partly by 
mental irritation, confined him to his retreat, he was 
desirous of having a glimpse of that gay and brilliant 
world from which he was exiled, and he pressed Fan- 
nikin to send him full accounts of her father 's evening 30 
parties. A few of her letters to him have been pub- 
lished ; and it is impossible to read them without dis- 
cerning in them all the powers which afterwards pro- 
duced Evelina and Cecilia, the quickness in catching 
every odd peculiarity of character and manner, the 35 



MADAME D'AEBLAY. I79 

skill in grrouping, the humour, often richly comic, 
sometimes even farcical. 

Fanny's propensity to novel-writing had for a time, 
been kept down. It now rose up stronger than ever. 

5 The heroes and heroines of the tales which had per- 
ished in the flames, were still present to the eye of 
her mind. One favourite story, in particular, haunted 
her imagination. It was about a certain Caroline 
Evelyn, a beautiful damsel who made an unfortunate 

10 love match, and died, leaving an infant daughter. 
Frances began to image to herself the various scenes, 
tragic and comic, through which the poor motherless 
girl, highly connected on one side, meanly connected 
on the other, might have to pass. A crowd of unreal 

15 things, good and bad, grave and ludicrous, surrounded 
the pretty, timid, young orphan ; a coarse sea captain ; 
an ugly insolent fop, blazing in a superb court dress ; 
another fop, as ugly and as insolent, but lodged on 
Snow Hill, and tricked out in secondhand finery for 

20 the Hampstead ball; an old woman, all wrinkles and 
rouge, flirting her fan with the air of a miss of sev- 
enteen, and screaming in a dialect made up of vulgar 
French and vulgar English ; a poet lean and ragged, 
with a broad Scotch accent. By degrees these shadows 

25 acquired stronger and stronger consistence ; the im- 
pulse which urged Frances to write became irre- 
sistible; and the result was the history of Evelina. 

Then came, naturally enough, a wish, mingled with 
many fears, to appear before the public; for, timid 

30 as Frances was, and bashful, and altogether unaccus- 
tomed to hear her own praises, it is clear that she 
wanted neither a strong passion for distinction, nor a 
just confidence in her own powers. Her scheme was 
to become, if possible, a candidate for fame without 

35 running any risk of disgrace. She had not money to 



180 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

bear the expense of printing. It was therefore neces- 
sary that some bookseller should be induced to take 
.the risk; and such a bookseller was not readily found. 
Dodsley refused even to look at the manuscript un- 
less he were intrusted w^th the name of the author. 5 
A publisher in Fleet Street, named Lowndes, was 
more complaisant. Some correspondence took place 
between this person and ]\Iiss Burney, who took the 
name of Grafton, and desired that the letters ad- 
dressed to her might be left at the Orange Coffee- lo 
house. But, before the bargain was finally struck, 
Fanny thought it her duty to obtain her father's con- 
sent. She told him that she had written a book, that 
she wished to have his permission to publish it anony- 
mously, but that she hoped that he would not insist 15 
upon seeing it. What followed may serve to illus- 
trate what we meant when we said that Dr. Burney 
was as bad a father as so goodhearted a man could 
possibly be. It never seems to have crossed his mind 
that Fanny was about to take a step on which the 20 
whole happiness of her life might depend, a step 
which might raise her to an honourable eminence, or 
cover her with ridicule and contempt. Several people 
had already been trusted, and strict concealment was 
therefore not to be expected. On so grave an occa-25 
sion, it was surely his duty to give his best counsel to 
his daughter, to win her confidence, to prevent her 
from exposing herself if her book were a bad one, 
and, if it were a good one, to see that the terms which 
she made with the publisher were likely to be bene- 30 
ficial to her. Instead of this, he only stared, burst 
out a-laughing, kissed her, gave her leave to do as she 
liked, and never even asked the name of her Avork. 
The contract with Lowndes was speedily concluded. 
Twenty pounds were given for the copyright, and 35 



MADAME D'ARBLAY. Igl 

were accepted by Fanny with delight. Her father's 
inexcusable neglect of his duty happily caused her no 
worse evil than the loss of twelve or fifteen hundred 
pounds. 

5 After many delays Evelina appeared in January, 
1778. Poor Fanny was sick with terror, and durst 
hardly stir out of doors. Some days passed before 
anything was heard of the book. It had, indeed, 
nothing but its own merits to push it into public 

lO favour. Its author was unknown. The house by 
which it was published, was not, we believe, held in 
high estimation. No body of partisans had been en- 
gaged to applaud. The better class of readers ex- 
pected little from a novel about a young lady's en- 

15 trance into the world. There was, indeed, at that 
time a disposition among the most respectable people 
to condemn novels generally ; nor was this disposition 
by any means without excuse ; for works of that sort 
were then almost always silly, and very frequently 

20 wicked. 

Soon, however, the first faint accents of praise be- 
gan to be heard. The keepers of the circulating li- 
braries reported that everybody was asking for Eve- 
lina, and that some person had guessed Anstey to be 

25 the author. Then came a favourable notice in the 
London Review; then another still more favourable 
in the IMonthly. And now the book found its way 
to tables which had seldom been polluted by marble 
covered volumes. Scholars and statesmen, who con- 

30 temptuously abandoned the crowd of romances to 
]\Iiss Lydia Languish and Miss Sukey Saunter, were 
not ashamed to own that they could not tear them- 
selves away from Evelina. Fine carriages and rich 
liveries, not often seen east of Temple Bar, were at- 

sstracted to the publisher's shop in Fleet Street. 



Ig2 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

Lowndes was daily questioned about the author, but 
was himself as much in the dark as any of the ques- 
tioners. The mystery, however, could not remain a 
mystery long. It was known to brothers and sisters, 
aunts and cousins; and they were far too proud and 5 
too happy to be discreet. Dr. Burney wept over the 
book in rapture. Daddy Crisp shook his fist at his 
Fannikin in affectionate anger at not having been 
admitted to her confidence. The truth was whispered 
to Mrs. Thrale; and then it began to spread fast. lo 

The book had been admired while it was ascribed 
to men of letters long conversant with the world, and 
accustomed to composition. But when it was known 
that a reserved, silent young woman had produced 
the best work of fiction that had appeared since the 15 
death of Smollett, the acclamations were redoubled. 
What she had done Avas, indeed, extraordinary. But, 
as usual, various reports improved the story till it be- 
came miraculous. Evelina, it is said, was the work 
of a girl of seventeen. Incredible as this tale was, 20 
it continued to be repeated down to our own time. 
Frances was too honest to confirm it. Probably she 
was too much a woman to contradict it; and it was 
long before any of her detractors thought of this mode 
of annoyance. Yet there was no want of low minds 25 
and bad hearts in the generation which witnessed her 
first appearance. There was the envious Kenrick 
and the savage Wolcot, the asp George Steevens, and 
the polecat John Williams. It did not, however, oc- 
cur to them to search the parish register of Lynn, in 30 
order that they might be able to twit a lady with 
having concealed her age. That truly chivalrous ex- 
ploit was reserved for a bad writer of our own time, 
whose spite she had provoked by not furnisliing him 
with materials for a worthless edition of Boswell'sss 



MADAME D'AEBLAY. 183 

Life of Johnson, some sheets of which our readers 
have doubtless seen round parcels of better books. 

But we must return to our story. The triumph 
was complete. The timid and obscure girl found her- 

5 self on the highest pinnacle of fame. Great men, on 
whom she had gazed at a distance with humble rever- 
ence, addressed her with admiration, tempered by the 
tenderness due to her sex and age. Burke^ Wiadliajn, 
Gibbon, Reynolds, Sheridan, were among her most 

10 ardent eulogists. Cumberland acknowledged her 
merit, after his fashion, by biting his lips and wrig- 
gling in his chair whenever her name was mentioned. 
But it was at Streatham that she tasted, in the high- 
est perfection, the sweets of flattery, mingled with 

15 the sweets of friendship. Mrs. Thrale, then at the 
height of prosperity and popularity, with gay spirits, 
quick wit, showy though superficial acquirements, 
pleasing though not refined manners, a singularly 
amiable temper, and a loving heart, felt towards 

20 Fanny as towards a younger sister. With the Thrales 
Johnson was domesticated. He was an old friend of 
Dr. Burney; but he had probably taken little notice 
of Dr. Burney 's daughters, and Fanny, we imagine, 
had never in her life dared to speak to him, unless 

25 to ask whether he wanted a nineteenth or a twentieth 
cup of tea. He was charmed by her tale, and pre- 
ferred it to the novels of Fielding, to whom, indeed, 
he had always been grossly unjust. He did not, in- 
deed, carry his partiality so far as to place Evelina 

30 by the side of Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison ; 
yet he said that his little favourite had done enough 
to have made even Richardson feel uneasy. With 
Johnson's cordial approbation of the book was min- 
gled a fondness, half gallant, half paternal, for the 

35 writer, and this fondness his age and character en- 



184 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

titled him to show without restraint. He begen by 
putting her hand to his lips. But he soon clasped 
her in his huge arms, and implored her to be a good 
girl. She was his pet, his dear love, his dear little 
Burney, his little character-monger. At one time, 5 
he broke forth in praise of the good taste of her caps. 
At another time he insisted on teaching her Latin. 
That, with all his coarseness and irritability, he was 
a man of sterling benevolence, has long been acknowl- 
edged. But how gentle and endearing his deport- lo 
ment could be, was not known till the Recollections 
of Madame D'Arblay were published. 

We have mentioned a few of the most eminent of 
those who paid their homage to the author of Evelina. 
The crowd of inferior admirers would require a cata- 15 
logue as long as that in the second book of the Iliad. 
In that catalogue would be Mrs. Cholmondeley, the 
sayer of odd things, and Seward, much given to 
yawning, and Baretti, who slew the man in the Hay- 
market, and Paoli, talking broken English, and Lang- 20 
ton, taller by the head than any other member of 
the club, and Lady Millar, who kept a vase wherein 
fools were wont to put bad verses, and Jerningham, 
who wrote verses fit to be put into the vase of Lady 
Millar, and Dr. Franklin, not, as some have dreamed, 25 
the great Pennsylvanian Dr. Franklin, who could 
not then have paid his respects to Miss Burney with- 
out much risk of being hanged, drawn, and quartered, 
but Dr. Franklin the less, 

A?as 30 

fX€L(x)v^ ovTL Tocro? y€ o(J05 TeA.a//-wi/t(os Atas 

dAAo, TToXv fX€LU)V. 

It would not have been surprising if such success 
had turned even a strong head, and corrupted even a 



MADAME D'ARBLAY. Ig5 

generous and affectionate nature. But, in the Diary, 
we can find no trace of any feeling inconsistent with 
a truly modest and amiable disposition. There is, 
indeed, abundant proof that Frances enjoyed with 

5 an intense, though a troubled, joy, the honours which 
her genius had won; but it is equally clear that her 
happiness sprang from the happiness of her father, 
her sister, and her dear Daddy Crisp. While flat- 
tered by the great, the opulent, and the learned, while 

10 followed along the Steyne at Brighton, and the Pan- 
tiles at Tunbridge "Wells, by the gaze of admiring 
crowds, her heart seems to have been still with the 
little domestic circle in Saint Martin's Street. If 
she recorded with minute diligence all the compli- 

15 ments, delicate and coarse, w^hich she heard wherever 
she turned, she recorded them for the eyes of two 
or three persons who had loved her from infancy, 
who had loved her in obscurity, and to whom her 
fame gave the purest and most exquisite delight. 

20 Nothing can be more unjust than to confound these 
outpourings of a kind heart, sure of perfect sympa- 
thy, with the egotism of a bluestocking, who prates 
to all who come near her about her own novel or her 
own volume of sonnets. 

25 It was natural that the triumphant issue of Miss 
Burney's first venture should tempt her to try a 
second. Evelina, though it had raised her fame, had 
added nothing to her fortune. Some of her friends 
urged her to write for the stage. Johnson promised 

30 to give her his advice as to the composition. IMurphy, 
who was supposed to understand the temper of the 
pit as well as any man of his time, undertook to in- 
struct her as to stage effect. Sheridan declar^4~that 
he would accept a play from her without even read- 

35 ing it. Thus encouraged, she wrote a comedy named 



186 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

The Witlings. Fortunately it was never acted or 
printed. We can, we think, easily perceive, from the 
little which is said on the subject in the Diary, that 
-5%e-.^itlings would have been damned and that 
Murphy and Sheridan thought so, though they were 5 
too polite to say so. Happily Frances had a friend 
who was not afraid to give her pain. Crisp, wiser 
for her than he had been for himself, read the manu- 
script in his lonely retreat, and manfully told her 
that she had failed, that to remove blemishes here and lo 
there would be useless, that the piece had abundance 
of wit but no interest, that it was bad as a whole, 
that it would remind every reader of the Femmes 
Savant es, which, strange to say, she had never read, 
and that she could not sustain so close a comparison 15 
with Moliere. This opinion, in which Dr. Burney 
concurred, was sent to Frances, in what she called 
''a hissing, groaning, catcalling epistle.'' But she 
had too much sense not to know that it was better to 
be hissed and catcalled by her Daddy, than by a whole 20 
sea of heads in the pit of Drury Lane Theatre; and 
she had too good a heart not to be grateful for so rare 
an act of friendship. She returned an answer, which 
shows how well she deserved to have a judicious, 
faithful, and affectionate adviser. ''I intend," she 25 
wrote, ''to console mj^self for your censure by this 
greatest proof I have ever received of the sincerity, 
candour, and, let me add, esteem, of my dear daddy. 
And as I happen to love myself more than my play, 
this consolation is not a very trifling, one.* This, how- 30 
ever, seriously I do believe, that when my two daddies 
put their heads together to concert that hissing, 
groaning, catcalling epistle they sent me, they felt 
as sorry for poor little Miss Bayes as she could pos^ 
sibly do for herself. You see I do not attempt to re- 35 



MADAME D'AEBLAY. 187 

pay your frankness with an air of pretended care- 
lessness. But, though somewhat disconcerted just 
now, I will promise not to let my vexation live out 
another day. Adieu, my dear daddy, I won't be 

5 mortified, and I won't be downed; but I will be proud 
to find I have, out of my own family, as well as in it, 
a friend who loves me well enough to speak plain 
truth to me." 

Frances now turned from her dramatic schemes to 

10 an undertaking far better suited to her talents. She 
determined to write a new tale, on a plan excellently 
contrived for the display of the powers in which her 
superiority to other writers lay. It was in truth a 
grand and various picture gallery, which presented to 

15 the eye a long series of men and women, each marked 
by some strong peculiar feature. There were avarice 
and prodigality, the pride of blood and the pride of 
money, morbid restlessness and morbid apathy, frivo- 
lous garrulity, supercilious silence, a Democritus to 

20 laugh at everything, and a Heraclitus to lament over 
everything. The work proceeded fast, and in twelve 
months was completed. It wanted something of fEe; 
simplicity which had been among the most attractive 
charms of Evelina ; but it furnished ample proof that] 

25 the four years, which had elapsed since Evelina ap- 
peared, had not been unprofitably spent. Those who 
sawjjecilia in manuscript pronounced it the best novel 
of the age. Mrs. Thrale laughed and wept over it. 
Crisp was even vehement in applause, and offered to 

30 insure the rapid and complete success of the book for 
half a crown. What Miss Burney received for the 
copyright is not mentioned in the Diary ; but we have 
observed several expressions from which we infer 
that the sum was considerable. That the sale would 

35 be great nobody could doubt; and Frances now had 



^s^j 



138 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

shrewd and experienced advisers, who would not suf- 
fer her to wrong herself. We have been told that the 
publishers gave her two thousand pounds, and we 
have no doubt that they might have given a still 
larger sum without being losers. 5 

Cecilia was published in the summer of 1782. The 
curiosity of the town w^as intense. We have been in- 
formed by persons who remember those days that no 
romance of Sir Walter Scott was more impatiently 
awaited, or more eagerly snatched from the counters lo 
of the booksellers. High as public expectation was, 
it was amply satisfied; and Cecilia was placed, by 
general acclamation, among the classical novels of 
England. 

Miss Burney was now thirty. Her youth had been 15 
singularly prosperous ; but clouds soon began to gather 
over that clear and radiant dawn. Events deeply 
painful to a heart so kind as that of Frances followed 
each other in rapid succession. She was first called 
upon to attend the deathbed of her best friend, Sam- 20 
uel Crisp. When she returned to St. Martin's Street, 
after performing this melancholy duty, she w^as ap- 
palled by hearing that Johnson had been struck with 
paralysis; and, not many months later, she parted 
from him for the last time with solemn tenderness. 25 
He wished to look on her once more ; and on the day 
before his death she long remained in tears on the 
stairs leading to his bedroom, in the hope that she 
might be called in to receive his blessing. He was 
then sinking fast, and though he sent her an affec-30 
tionate message, was unable to see her. But this was 
not the worst. There are separations far more cruel 
than those which are made by death. She might w^eep 
with proud affection for Crisp and Johnson. She had 
to blush as well as to weep for IMrs. Thrale. 35 



MADAME D'ARBLAV. 189 

Life, however, still smiled upon Frances. Domes- 
tic happiness, friendship, independence, leisure, let- 
ters, all these things were hers; and she flung them 
all away. 

5 Among the distinguished persons to whom she had 
been introduced, none appears to have stood higher 
in her regard than Mrs. Delany. This lady was an 
interesting and venerable relic of a past age. She 
was the niece of George Granville, Lord Lansdowne, 

10 who, in his youth, exchanged verses and compli- 
ments with Edmund Waller, and who was among the 
first to applaud the opening genius of Pope. She had 
married Dr. Delany, a man known to his contempo- 
raries as a profound scholar and an eloquent preacher, 

15 but remembered in our time chiefly as one of that 
small circle in which the fierce spirit of Swift, tor- 
tured by disappointed ambition, by remorse, and by 
the approaches of madness, sought for amusement 
and repose. Doctor Delany had long been dead. His 

20 widow, nobly descended, eminently accomplished, and 
retaining, in spite of the infirmities of advanced age, 
the vigour of her faculties and the serenity of her 
temper, enjoyed and deserved the favour of the royal 
family. She had a pension of three hundred a year ; 

25 and a house at Windsor, belonging to the crown, had 
been fitted up for her accommodation. At this house 
the King and Queen sometimes called and found a 
very natural pleasure in thus catching an occasional 
glimpse of the private life of English families. 

30 In December, 1785, Miss Burney was on a visit to 
^Irs. Delany at Windsor. The dinner was over. The 
old lady was taking a nap. Her grandniece, a little 
girl of seven, was playing at some Christmas game 
with the visitors, when the door opened, and a stout 

35 gentleman entered unannounced, with a star on his 



190 MACAULAY^S ESSAYS. 

breast, and ''What? what? what?" in his mouth. 
A cry of ' ' The King ! ' ' was set up. A general scam- 
pering followed. Miss Burney owns that she could 
not have been more terrified if she had seen a ghost. 
But Mrs. Delany came forward to pay her duty to her 5 
royal friend, and the disturbance was quieted. 
Frances was then presented, and underwent a long 
examination and cross-examination about all that she 
had written and all that she meant to write. The 
Queen soon made her appearance, and his Majesty 10 
repeated, for the benefit of his consort, the informa- 
tion which he had extracted from Lliss Burney. The 
good nature of the royal pair might have softened 
even the authors of the Probationary Odes, and could 
not but be delightful to a young lady who had been 15 
brought up a Tory. In a few days the visit was re- 
peated. IMiss Burney was more at ease than before. 
His Majesty, instead of seeking for information, con- 
descended to impart it, and passed sentence on many 
great writers, English and foreign. Voltaire he pro- 20 
nounced a monster. Rousseau he liked rather better. 
''But was there ever," he cried, ^'such stuff as great 
part of Shakspeare ? Only one must not say so. But 
what think you? What? Is there not sad stuff? 
What? What?" 25 

The next day Frances enjoyed the privilege of 
listening to some equally valuable criticism uttered by 
the Queen touching Goethe and Klopstock, and might 
have learned an important lesson of economy from the 
mode in which her Majesty's library had been formed. 30 
"I picked the book up on a stall," said the Queen. 
*'0h, it is amazing what good books there are on 
stalls ! ' ' Mrs. Delany, who seems to have understood 
from these words that her Majesty was in the habit 
of exploring the booths of Moorfields and Holywell 35 



MADAME D'ARBLAY. '191 

Street in person, could not suppress an exclamation 
of surprise. ''Why," said the Queen, ''I don't pick 
them up myself. But I have a servant very clever; 
and, if they are not to be had at the booksellers, they 

5 are not for me more than for another. ' ' Miss Burney 
describes this conversation as delightful ; and, indeed 
we cannot wonder that, with her literary tastes, she 
should be delighted at hearing in how magnificent a 
manner the greatest lady in the land encouraged 

.0 literature. 

The truth is, that Frances was fascinated by the 
condescending kindness of the two great personages 
to whom she had been presented. Her father was 
even more infatuated than herself. The result was a 

.5 step of which we cannot think with patience, but 
which, recorded as it is, with all its consequences, in 
these volumes, deserves at least this praise, that it has 
furnished a most impressive warning. 

A German lady of the name of Haggerdorn, one of 

iothe keepers of the Queen's robes, retired about this 
time ; and her Majesty offered the vacant post to Miss 
Burney. When we consider that Miss Burney was 
decidedly the most popular writer of fictitious nar- 
rative then living, that competence, if not opulence, 

!5was within her reach, and that she was more than 
usually happy in her domestic circle, and when we 
compare the sacrifice which she was invited to make 
with the remuneration which was held out to her, we 
are divided between laughter and indignation. 

10 What was demanded of her was that she should 
consent to be almost as completely separated from her 
family and friends as if she had gone to Calcutta, and 
almost as close a prisoner as if she had been sent to 
gaol for a libel; that with talents which had in- 

Bstructed and delighted the highest living minds, she 



192- MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

should now be employed only in mixing snuff and 
sticking pins; that she should be summoned by a 
waiting woman's bell to a waiting woman's duties; 
that she should pass her whole life under the re- 
straints of a paltry etiquette, should sometimes fasts 
till she was ready to swoon with hunger, should 
sometimes stand till her knees gave way with fatigue ; 
that she should not dare to speak or move without 
considering how her mistress might like her words 
and gestures. Instead of those distinguished memo 
and women, the flower of all political parties, with 
whom she had been in the habit of mixing on terms 
of equal friendship, she was to have for her per- 
petual companion the chief keeper of the robes, an 
old hag from Germany, of mean understanding, of 15 
insolent manners, and of temper which, naturally 
savage, had now been exasperated by disease. Now 
and then, indeed, poor Frances might console herself 
for the loss of Burke's and Windham's society, by 
joining in the ' ' celestial colloquy sublime ' ' of his 20 
Majesty's Equerries. 

And what was the consideration for which she was 
to sell herself to this slavery ? A peerage in her own 
right? A pension of two thousand a year for life? 
A seventy-four for her brother in the navy? A 25 
deanery for her brother in the church ? Not so. The 
price at which she was valued was her Board, her 
lodging, the attendance of a man-servant, and two 
hundred pounds a year. 

The man who, even when hard pressed by hunger, 30 
sells his birthright for a mess of pottage, is unwise. 
But what shall we say of him who parts with his birth- 
right, and does not get even the pottage in return? 
It is not necessary to inquire whether opulence be an 
adequate compensation for the sacrifice of bodily and 35 



MADAME D'AEBLAY. I93 

mental freedom; for Frances Burney paid for leave 
to be a prisoner and a menial. It was evidently un- 
derstood as one of the terms of her engagement, that, 
while she was a member of the royal household, she 

5 was not to appear before the public as an author : 
and, even had there been no such understanding, her 
avocations were such as left her no leisure for any 
considerable intellectual effort. That her place was 
incompatible with her literary pursuits was indeed 

10 frankly acknowledged by the King when she resigned, 
' ' She has given up, ' ' he said, ' ' five years of her pen. ' ' 
That during those five years she might, without pain- 
ful exertion, without any exertion that would not 
have been a pleasure, have earned enough to buy an 

15 annuity for life much larger than the precarious 
salary which she received at court, is quite , certain. 
The same income, too, which in Saint Martin's Street 
would have afforded her every comfort, must have 
been found scanty at Saint James's. We cannot ven- 

20 ture to speak confidently of the price of millinery 
and jewellery; but we are greatly deceived if a lady 
who had to attend Queen Charlotte on many public 
occasions, could possibly save a farthing out of a 
salary of two hundred a year. The principle of the 

25 arrangement was, in short, simply this, that Frances 
Burney should become a slave, and should be re- 
warded by being made a beggar. 

With what object their Majesties brought her to 
tlieir palace, we must own ourselves unable to conceive. 

30 Their object could not be to encourage her literary 
exertions ; for they took her from a situation in which 
it was almost certain that she would write, and put 
her into a situation in which it was impossible for her 
to write. Their object could not be to promote her 

35 pecuniary interest ; for they took her from a situa- 



194 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

tion where she was likely to become rich, and put her 
into a situation in which she could not but continue 
poor. Their object could not be to obtain an emi- 
nently useful waiting maid; for it is clear that, 
though ]\Iiss Burney was the only woman of her time 5 
who could have described the death of Harrel, thou- 
sands might have been found more expert in tying 
ribands and filling snuff boxes. To grant her a 
pension on the civil list would have been an act of 
judicious liberality honourable to the court. If thisio 
was impracticable, the next best thing was to let her 
alone. That the King and Queen meant her nothing 
but kindness, w^e do not in the least doubt. But 
their kindness was the kindness of persons raised high 
above the mass of mankind, accustomed to be ad- 15 
dressed with profound deference, accustomed to see 
all who approach them mortified by their coldness 
and elated by their smiles. They fancied that to be 
noticed by them, to be near them, to serve them, was 
in itself a kind of happiness ; and that Frances Bur- 20 
ney ought to be full of gratitude for being permitted 
to purchase, by the sacrifice of health, wealth, free- 
dom, domestic affection, and literary fame, the 
privilege of standing behind a royal chair, and hold- 
ing a pair of royal gloves. 25 

And who can blame them? Who can wonder that 
princes should be under such a delusion, when they 
are encouraged in it by the very persons who suffer 
from it most cruelly? Was it to be expected that 
George the Third and Queen Charlotte should under- 30 
stand the interest of Frances Burney better, or pro- 
mote it with more zeal than herself and her father? 
No deception was practised. The conditions of the 
house of bondage were set forth with all simplicity. 
The hook was presented without a bait; the net was 35 



MADAME D'AKBLAY. I95 

spread in sight of the bird: and the naked hook was 
greedily swallowed, and the silly bird made haste to 
entangle herself in the net. 

It is not strange indeed that an invitation to court 
5 should have caused a fluttering in the bosom of an 
inexperienced young woman. But it was the duty 
of the parent to watch over the child, and to show 
her that on one side were only infantine vanities and 
chimerical hopes, on the other liberty, peace of mind, 

10 affluence, social enjoyments, honourable distinctions. 
Strange to say, the only hesitation was on the part 
of Frances. Dr. Burney was transported out of him- 
self with delight. Not such are the raptures of a 
Circassian father who has sold his pretty daughter 

15 well to a Turkish slave-merchant. Yet Dr. Burney 
was an amiable man, a man of good abilities, a man 
who had seen much of the world. But he seems to 
have thought that going to court was like going to 
heaven ; that to see princes and princesses was a kind 

20 of beatific vision ; that the exquisite felicity enjoyed 
by royal persons was not confined to themselves, but 
was communicated by some mysterious efflux or re- 
flection to all who were suffered to stand at their 
toilettes, or to bear their trains. He overruled all his 

25 daughter's objections, and himself escorted her to her 
prison. The door closed. The key was turned. She, 
looking back with tender regret on all that she had 
left, and forward with anxiety and terror to the new 
life on which she was entering, was unable to speak 

30 or stand ; and he went on his way homeward rejoicing 
in her marvellous prosperity. 

And now began a slavery of five years, a five j^ears 
taken from the best part of life, and wasted in menial 
drudgery or in recreations duller than even menial 

35 drudgery, under galling restraints and amidst un- 



196 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

friendly or uninteresting companions. The history 
of an ordinary day was this. Miss Burney had to 
rise and dress herself early, that she might be ready 
to answer the royal bell, which rang at half after 
seven. Till about eight she attended in the Queen's 5 
dressing room, and had the honour of lacing her 
august mistress's stays, and of putting on the hoop, 
gown, and neckhandkerchief. The morning was 
chiefly spent in rummaging drawers and laying fine 
clothes in their proper places. Then the Queen was 10 
to be powdered and dressed for the day. Twice a 
week her Majesty's hair was curled and craped; and 
this operation appears to have added a full hour to 
the business of the toilette. It was generally three 
before Miss Burney was at liberty. Then she had 15 
two hours at her own disposal. To these hours we owe 
great part of her Diary. At five she had to attend her 
colleague, IMadame Schwellenberg, a hateful old toad- 
eater, as illiterate as a chambermaid, as proud as a 
whole German Chapter, rude, peevish, unable to bear 20 
solitude, unable to conduct herself with common de- 
cency in society. With this delightful associate, 
Frances Burney had to dine, and pass the evening. 
The pair generally remained together from five to 
eleven, and often had no other company the whole 25 
time, except during the hour from eight to nine, when 
the equerries came to tea. If poor Frances attempted 
to escape to her own apartment, and to forget her 
wretchedness over a book, the execrable old woman 
railed and stormed, and complained that she was neg- 30 
lected. Yet, when Frances stayed, she was constantly 
assailed with insolent reproaches. Literary fame was, 
in the eyes of the German crone, a blemish, a proof 
that the person who enjoyed it was meanly born, and 
out of the pale of good society. All her scanty stock 35 



MADAME D'AEBLAY. 197 

of broken English was employed to express the con- 
tempt with which she regarded the author of Evelina 
and Cecilia. Frances detested cards, and indeed knew 
nothing about them ; but she soon found that the least 

5 miserable way of passing an evening with Madame 
Schwellenberg was at the card-table and consented, 
with patient sadness, to give hours, which might have 
called forth the laughter and the tears of many genera- 
tions, to the king of clubs and the knave of spades. 

10 Between eleven and twelve the bell rang again. Miss 
Burney had to pass twenty minutes or half an hour in 
undressing the Queen, and was then at liberty to 
retire, and to dream that she was chatting with her 
brother by the quiet hearth in Saint Martin's Street, 

15 that she was the centre of an admiring assemblage at 
Mrs. Crewe's, that Burke was calling her the first 
woman of the age, or that Dilly was giving her a 
cheque for two thousand guineas. 

IMen, we must suppose, are less patient than women ; 

20 for we are utterly at a loss to conceive how any hu- 
man being could endure such a life, while there re- 
mained a vacant garret in Grub Street, a crossing in 
want of a sweeper, a parish workhouse, or a parish 
vault. And it was for such a life that Frances Bur- 

25 ney had given up liberty and peace, a happy fireside, 
attached friends, a wide and splendid circle of ac- 
quaintance, intellectual pursuits in which she wa^ 
qualified to excel, and the sure hope of what to her 
would have been affluence. 

30 There is nothing new under the sun. The last great 
master of Attic eloquence and Attic wit has left us a 
forcible and touching description of the misery of a 
man of letters, who, lured by hopes similar to those of 
Frances, had entered the service of one of the mag- 

35 nates of Rome. *' Unhappy that I am," cries the 



198 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

victim of his own childish ambition: *' would nothing 
content me but that I must leave mine old pursuits 
and mine old companions, and the life which was 
without care, and the sleep which had no limit save 
mine own pleasure, and the walks which I was frees 
to take where I listed, and fling myself into the lowest 
pit of a dungeon like this ? And, O God ! for what ? 
Was there no way by which I might have enjoyed 
in freedom comforts even greater than those which I 
now earn by servitude? Like a lion which has beenio 
made so tame that men may lead him about by a 
thread, I am dragged up and down, with broken and 
humbled spirit, at the heels of those to whom, in mine 
own domain, I should have been an object of awe and 
wonder. And, worst of all, I feel that here I gain no 15 
credit, that here I give no pleasure. The talents and 
accomplishments, which charmed a far different circle, 
are here out of place. I am rude in the arts of palaces, 
and can ill bear comparison with those whose calling, 
from their youth up, has been to flatter and to sue. 20 
Have I, then, two lives, that, after I have wasted one 
in the service of others, there may yet remain to me a 
second, which I may live unto myself?'' 

Now and then, indeed, events occurred which dis- 
turbed the wretched monotony of Frances Burney'szs 
life. The court moved from Kew to "Windsor, and 
from Windsor back to Kew. One dull colonel went 
out of waiting, and another dull colonel came into 
waiting. An impertinent servant made a blunder , 
about tea, and caused a misunderstanding between the 30 
gentlemen and the ladies. A half witted French 
Protestant minister talked oddly about conjugal fidel- 
ity. An unlucky member of the household mentioned 
a passage in the IMorning Herald, reflecting on the 
Queen; and forthwith Madame Schwellenberg began 35 



MADAME D'AKBLAY. I99 

to storm in bad English, and told him that he made 
her 'Svhat you call perspire!" 

A more important occurrence was the King's visit 
to Oxford. Miss Burney went in the royal train to 

5 Nuneham, was utterly neglected there in the crowd, 
and could with difficulty find a servant to show the 
way to her bedroom, or a hairdresser to arrange her 
curls. She had the honor of entering Oxford in the 
last of a long string of carriages which formed the 

10 royal procession, of walking after the Queen all day 
tlirough refectories and chapels, and of standing, half 
dead with fatigue and hunger, while her august mis- 
tress was seated at an excellent cold collation. At 
IMagdalene College, Frances was left for a moment* 

15 in a parlour, where she sank down on a chair. A 
goodnatured equerry saw that she was exhausted, and 
shared with her some apj-icots and bread, which he 
had wisely put into his pockets. At that moment the 
door opened ; the Queen entered ; the wearied attend- 

20 ants sprang up ; the bread and fruit were hastily con- 
cealed. ''I found," says poor Miss Burney, ''that our 
appetites were to be supposed annihilated, at the same 
moment that our strength was to be invincible." 
Yet Oxford, seen even under such disadvantages, 

25 ' ' revived in her, ' ' to use her own words, ' ' a conscious- 
ness to pleasure which had long lain nearly dormant." 
She forgot, during one moment, that she was a wait- 
ing maid, and felt as a woman of true genius might 
])e expected to feel amidst venerable remains of antiq- 

30 uity, beautiful works of art, vast repositories of knowl- 
edge, and memorials of the illustrious dead. Had she 
still been wliat she was before her father induced her 
to take the most fatal step of her life, we can easily 
imagine what pleasure she would have derived from a 

35 visit to the noblest of English cities. She might, in- 



200 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

deed, have been forced to travel in a hack chaise, and 
might not have worn so fine a gown of Chambery 
gauze as that in which she tottered after the royal 
party; but with what delight would she have then 
paced the cloisters of IMagdalene, compared the an- 5 
tique gloom of Merton with the splendour of Christ 
Church, and looked down from the dome of Radcliffe 
Library on the magnificent sea of turrets and battle- 
ments below ! How gladly would learned men have 
laid aside for a few hours Pindar's Odes and Aris-io 
totle's Ethics, to escort the author of Cecilia from 
college to college ! What neat little banquets would she 
have found set out in their monastic cells ! With what 
eagerness would pictures, medals, and illuminated 
missals have been brought forth from the most mys-15 
terious cabinets for her amusement ! How much she 
would have had to hear and to tell about Johnson, as 
she walked over Pembroke, and about Reynolds in the 
antechapel of New College! But these indulgences 
were not for one who had sold herself into bondage. 20 

About eighteen months after the visit to Oxford, 
another event diversified the wearisome life which 
Frances led at court. Warren Hastings was brought 
to the bar of the House of Peers. The Queen and 
Princesses Avere present when the trial commenced, 25 
and Miss Burney was permitted to attend. During 
the subsequent proceedings a day rule for the same 
purpose was occasionally granted to her; for the 
Queen took the strongest interest in the trial, and, 
when she could not go herself to Westminster Hall, 30 
liked to receive a report of what had passed from 
a person who had singular powers of observation, and 
who was, moreover, acquainted with some of the most 
distinguished managers. The portion of the Diary 
which relates to this celebrated proceeding is lively 35 



MADAME D'AKBLAY. 201 

and picturesque. Yet we read it, we own, with pain ; 
for it seems to us to prove that the fine understand- 
ing of Frances Burney was beginning to feel the 
pernicious influence of a mode of life which is as 

5 incompatible with health of mind as the air of the 
Pomptine marshes with health of body. From the 
first day she espouses the cause of Hastings with a pre- 
sumptuous vehemence and acrimony quite inconsistent 
with the modesty and suavity of her ordinary deport- 

10 ment. She shudders when Burke enters the Hall at 
the head of the Commons. She pronounces him the 
cruel oppressor of an innocent man. She is at a loss to 
conceive how the managers can look at the defendant, 
and not blush. Windham comes to her from the man- 

isager's box, to offer her refreshment. ''But,'* says 
she, ''I could not break bread with him." Then, 
again, she exclaims, "Ah, Mr. Windham, how came 
you ever engaged in so cruel, so unjust a cause?" 
''Mr. Burke saw me," she says, "and he bowed with 

20 the most marked civility of manner." This, be it 
observed, was just after his opening speech, a speech 
which had produced a mighty effect, and which, cer- 
tainly, no other orator that ever lived could have 
made. "My curtsy," she continues, "was the most un- 

25 grateful, distant, and cold ; I could not do otherwise ; 
so hurt I felt to see him the head of such a cause." 
Now, not only had Burke treated her with constant 
kindness, but the very last act which he performed on 
the day on which he was turned out of the Pay Office, 

30 about four years before this trial, was to make Doctor 
Burney organist of Chelsea Hospital. When, at the 
Westminster election. Doctor Burney was divided be- 
1ween liis gratitude for this favour and liis Tory opin- 
ions, Burke in the noblest manner disclaimed all right 

35 to exact a sacrifice of principle. "You have little or 



202 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

no obligations to me," he wrote; ''but if you had as 
many as I really wish it were in my power, as it is cer- 
tainly in my desire, to lay on you, I hope you do not 
think me capable of conferring them, in order to sub- 
ject your mind or your affairs to a painful and mis- 5 
chievous servitude." Was this a man to be uncivilly 
treated by a daughter of Doctor Burney, because she 
chose to differ from him respecting a vast and most 
complicated question, which he had studied deeply 
during many years, and which she had never studied 10 
at all ? It is clear, from Miss Burney 's own narrative, 
that when she behaved so unkindly to Mr. Burke, she 
did not even know of what Hastings was accused. 
One thing, however, she must have known, that Burke 
had been able to convince a House of Commons, bit- 15 
terly prejudiced against himself, that the charges were 
well founded, and that Pitt and Dundas had concurred 
with Fox and Sheridan, in supporting the impeach- 
ment. Surely a woman of far inferior abilities to Miss 
Burney might have been expected to see that this 20 
never could have happened unless there had been a 
strong case against the late Governor General. And 
there was, as all reasonable men now admit, a strong 
case against him. That there were great public serv- 
ices to be set off against his great crimes is perfectly 25 
true. But his services and his crimes were equally 
unknown to the lady who so confidently asserted his 
perfect innocence, and imputed to his accusers, that 
is to say, to all the greatest men of all parties in 
the state, not merely error, but gross injustice and 30 
barbarity. 

She had, it is true, occasionally seen Mr. Hastings, 
and had found his manners and conversation agree- 
able. But surely she could not be so weak as to infer 
from the gentleness of his deportment in the drawing 35 



MADAME D'ARBLAY. 203 

room, that he was incapable of committing a great 
state crime, under the influence of ambition and re- 
venge. A silly Miss, fresh from a boarding school, 
might fall into such a mistake; but the woman who 

5 had drawn the character of Mr. Monckton should have 
known better. 

The truth is that she had been too long at Court. 
She was sinking into a slavery worse than that of 
the body. The iron was beginning to enter into the 

10 soul. Accustomed during many months to watch the 
eye of a mistress, to receive with boundless gratitude 
the slightest mark of royal condescension, to feel 
wretched at every symptom of royal displeasure, to 
associate only with spirits long tamed and broken in, 

15 she was degenerating into something fit for her place. 
Queen Charlotte was a violent partisan of Hastings, 
had received presents from him, and had so far de- 
l^arted from the severity of her virtue as to lend her 
countenance to his wife, whose conduct had certainly 

20 been as reprehensible as that of any of the frail beau- 
ties who were then rigidly excluded from the English 
Court. The King, it was well known, took the same 
side. To the King and Queen all the members of the 
household looked submissively for guidance. The 

25 impeachment, therefore, was an atrocious persecution ; 
the managers were rascals; the defendant was the 
most deserving and the worst used man in the king- 
dom. This was the cant of the \Vhole palace, from 
Gold Stick in Waiting, down to the Table Deckers and 

soYeoinen of the Silver Scullery; and Miss Burney 
canted like the rest, though in livelier tones, and with 
less bitter feelings. 

The account which she has given of the King's ill- 
ness contains much excellent narrative and deserip- 

35 tion, and will, we think, be as much valued by the 



204 MACAIILAY'S ESSAYS. 

historians of a future age as any equal portion of 
Pepys' or Evelyn's Diaries. That account shows also 
how affectionate and compassionate her nature was. 
But it shows also, we must say, that her way of life 
was rapidly impairing her powers of reasoning and 5 
her sense of justice. We do not mean to discuss, in 
this place, the question, whether the views of Mr. Pitt 
or those of Mr. Fox respecting the regency were the 
more correct. It is, indeed, quite needless to discuss 
that question: for the censure of Miss Burney falls 10 
alike on Pitt and Fox, on majority and minority. She 
is angry with the House of Commons for presuming 
to inquire whether the King was mad or not, and 
whether there was a chance of his recovering his 
senses. * ' A melancholy day, ' ' she writes ; ' ' news 15 
bad both at home and abroad. At home the dear 
unhappy king still worse; abroad new examinations 
voted of the physicians. Good heavens! what an 
insult does this seem from Parliamentary power, to 
investigate and bring forth to the world every cir- 20 
cumstance of such a malady as is ever held sacred to 
secrecy in the most private families ! How indignant 
we all feel here, no words can say." It is proper to 
observe, that the motion which roused all this indig- 
nation at Kew w^as made by ]\Ir. Pitt himself. We 25 
see, therefore, that the loyalty of the minister, who 
was then generally regarded as the most heroic cham- 
pion of his Prince, was lukewarm indeed when com- 
pared with the boiling zeal which filled the pages of 
the backstairs and the women of the bedchamber. Of 30 
the Regency bill, Pitt's own bill, IMiss Burney speaks 
with horror. *'I shuddered," she says, ''to hear it 
named." And again, "Oh, how dreadful will be the 
day when that unhappy bill takes place I I cannot ap- 
prove the plan of it." The truth is, that Mr. Pitt, 35 



MADAME D'AKBLAY. 205 

whether a wise and upright statesman or not, was a 
statesman; and whatever motives he might have for 
imposing restrictions on the regent, felt that in some 
way or other there must be some provision made for 

5 the execution of some part of the kingly office, or that 
no government would be left in the country. But this 
was a matter of which the household never thought. 
It never occurred, as far as we can see, to the Exons 
and Keepers of the Robes, that it was necessary that 

10 there should be somewhere or other, a power in the 
state to pass laws, to preserve order, to pardon crim- 
inals, to fill up offices, to negotiate with foreign govern- 
ments, to command the army and navy. Nay, these 
enlightened politicians, and Miss Burney among the 

15 rest, seem to have thought that any person who con- 
sidered the subject with reference to the public inter- 
est, showed himself to be a badhearted man. Nobody 
wonders at this in a gentleman usher ; but it is melan- 
choly to see genius sinking into such debasement. 

20 During more than two years after the King's re- 
covery, Frances dragged on a miserable existence at 
the palace. The consolations, which had for a time 
mitigated the wretchedness of servitude, were one by 
one withdrawn. Mrs. Delany, whose society had been 

25 a great resource when the Court was at Windsor, was 
now dead. One of the gentlemen of the royal estab- 
lishment. Colonel Digby, appears to have been a man 
of sense, of taste, of some reading, and of prepossessing 
manners. Agreeable associates were scarce in the 

30 prison house, and he and ]\Iiss Burney therefore natu- 
rally became attached to each other. She owns that 
she valued him as a friend ; and it would not have been 
strange if his attentions had led her to entertain for 
him a sentiment warmer than friendship. He quitted 

35 the Court, and married in a way which astonished ]\Iiss 



206 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

Burney greatly, and which evidently wounded her 
feelings, and lowered him in her esteem. The palace 
grew duller and duller; Madame Schwellenberg be- 
came more and more savage and insolent ; and now the 
health of poor Frances began to give way ; and all who 5 
saw her pale face, her emaciated figure, and her feeble 
walk, predicted that her sufferings would soon be over. 
Frances uniformly speaks of her royal mistress, and 
of the princesses, with respect and affection. The 
princesses seem to have well deserved all the praise 10 
which is bestowed on them in the Diary. They were, 
we doubt not, most amiable women. But "the sweet 
Queen, ' ' as she is constantly called, in these volumes, is 
not by any means an object of admiration to us. She 
had undoubtedly sense enough to know what kind of 15 
deportment suited her high station, and self-command 
enough to maintain that deportment invariably. She 
was, in her intercourse with Miss Burney, generally 
gracious and affable, sometimes, when displeased, cold 
and reserved, but never, under any circumstances, 20 
rude, peevish, or violent. She knew how to dispense, 
gracefully and skilfully, those little civilities which, 
when paid by a sovereign, are prized at many times 
their intrinsic value; how to pay a compliment: how 
to lend a book; how to ask after a relation. But she 23 
seems to have been utterly regardless of the comfort, 
the health, the life of her attendants, when her own 
convenience was concerned. Weak, feverish, hardly 
able to stand, Frances had still to rise before seven, 
in order to dress the sweet Queen, and sit up tillao 
midnight, in order to undress the sweet Queen. The 
indisposition of the handmaid could not, and did not, 
escape the notice of her royal mistress. But the estab- 
lished doctrine of the Court was, that all sickness 
was to be considered as a pretence until it proved 35 



MADAME D'ARBLAY. 207 

fatal. The only way in which the invalid could clear 
herself from the suspicion of malingering, as it is 
called in the army, was to go on lacing and unlacing, 
till she fell down dead at the royal feet. *^This,'' 
5 Miss Burney wrote, when she was suffering cruelly 
from sickness, watching, and labour, **is by no means 
from hardness of heart; far otherwise. There is no 
hardness of heart in any one of them ; but it is preju- 
dice and want of personal experience.'* 

10 IMany strangers sympathized with the bodily and 
mental sufferings of this distinguished woman. All 
who saw her saw that her frame was sinking, that her 
heart was breaking. The last, it should seem, to ob- 
serve the change, was her father. At length, in spite 

15 of himself, his eyes were opened. In May, 1790, his 
daughter had an interview of three hours with him, 
the only long interview which they had had since he 
took her to Windsor in 1786. She told him that she 
was miserable, that she was worn with attendance and 

20 want of sleep, that she had no comfort in life, nothing 
to love, nothing to hope, that her family and friends 
were to her as though they were not, and were remem- 
bered by her as men remember the dead. From day- 
break to midnight the same killing labour, the same 

25 recreations, more hateful than labour itself, followed 
each other without variety, without any interval of 
liberty and repose. 

The Doctor was greatly dejected by this news ; but 
was too goodnatured a man not to say that, if she 

30 wished to resign, his house and arms were open to her. 
Still, however, he could not bear to remove her from 
the Court. His veneration for royalty amounted in 
truth to idolatry. It can be compared only to the 
grovelling superstition of those Syrian devotees who 

35 made their children pass through the fire to IMoloch. 



208 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

When he induced his daughter to accept the place of 
keeper of the robes, he entertained, as she tells us, a 
hope that some worldly advantage or other, not set 
down in the contract of service, would be the result 
of her connection with the Court. What advantages 
he expected we do not know, nor did he probably know 
himself. But, whatever he expected, he certainly got 
nothing. ]\Iiss Burney had been hired for board, lodg- 
ing, and two hundred a year. Board, lodging, and two 
hundred a year, she had duly received. We haveio 
looked carefully through the Diary, in the hope of 
finding some trace of those extraordinary benefactions 
on which the Doctor reckoned. But we can discover 
only a promise, never performed, of a gown : and for 
this promise Miss Burney was expected to return is 
thanks, such as might have suited the beggar with 
whom Saint Martin in the legend divided his cloak. 
The experience of four years was, however, insufficient 
to dispel the illusion which had taken possession of the 
Doctor's mind; and, between the dear father and the 20 
sweet Queen, there seemed to be little doubt that 
some day or other Frances would drop down a corpse. 
Six months had elapsed since the interview between 
the parent and the daughter. The resignation was not 
sent in. The sufferer grew worse and worse. She 25 
took bark; but it soon ceased to produce a beneficial 
effect. She was stimulated with wine ; she was soothed 
with opium; but in vain. Her breath began to fail. 
The whisper that she was in a decline spread through 
the Court. The pains in her side became so severe 30 
that she was forced to crawl from the card-table of the 
old Fury to whom she was tethered, three or four 
times in an evening, for the purpose of taking harts- 
horn. Had she been a negro slave, a humane planter 
would have excused her from work. But her IMajesty 35 



MADAME D'ARBLAY. 209 

showed no mercy. Thrice a day the accursed bell still 
rang ; the Queen was still to be dressed for the morn- 
ing at seven, and to be dressed for the day at noon, 
and to be undressed at midnight. 

5 But there had arisen, in literary and fashionable 
society, a general feeling of compassion for Miss 
Burney, and of indignation against both her father 
and the Queen. ' ' Is it possible, ' ' said a great French 
lady to the Doctor, ^'that your daughter is in a situa- 

10 tion where she is never allowed a holiday ? ' ' Horace 
Walpole wrote to Frances, to express his sympathy. 
Boswell, boiling over with goodnatured rage, almost 
forced an entrance into the palace to see her. *'My 
dear ma'am, why do you stay? It won't do, ma'am, 

15 you must resign. We can put up with it no longer. 
Some very violent measures, I assure you, will be 
taken. We shall address Dr. Burney in a body." 
Burke and Reynolds, though less noisy, were zealous 
in the same cause. Windham spoke to Dr. Burney, 

20 but found him still irresolute. "I will set the club 
upon him, ' ' cried Windham ; ' ' Miss Burney has some 
very true admirers there, and I am sure they will 
eagerly assist." Indeed the Burney family seem to 
have been apprehensive that some public affront, such 

25 as the Doctor's unpardonable folly, to use the mildest 
term, had richly deserved, would be put upon him. 
The medical men spoke out, and plainly told him that 
his daughter must resign or die. 

At last paternal affection, medical authority, and 

30 the voice of all London crying shame, triumphed over 
Dr. Burney 's love of courts. He determined that 
Frances should write a letter of resignation. It was 
with difficulty that, though her life was at stake, she 
mustered spirit to put the paper into the Queen's 

35 hands. ''I could not," so runs the Diary, ''summon 



210 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

courage to present my memorial: my heart always 
failed me from seeing the Queen's entire freedom 
from such an expectation. For though I was fre- 
quently so ill in her presence that I could hardly 
stand, I saw she concluded me, while life remained, 5 
inevitably hers." 

At last with a trembling hand the paper was deliv- 
ered. Then came the storm. Juno, as in the ^neid, 
delegated the work of vengeance to Alecto. The 
Queen was calm and gentle ; but Madame Schwellen- lo 
berg raved like a maniac in the incurable ward of Bed- 
lam ! Such insolence ! Such ingratitude ! Such folly ! 
Would Miss Burney bring utter destruction on herself 
and her family? Would she throw away the inesti- 
mable advantage of royal protection ! Would she part 15 
with privileges which, once relinquished, could never 
be regained? It was idle to talk of health and life. 
If people could not live in the palace, the best thing 
that could befall them was to die in it. The resigna- 
tion was not accepted. The language of the medical 20 
men became stronger and stronger. Dr. Burney 's 
parental fears were fully roused; and he explicitly 
declared, in a letter meant to be shown to the Queen, 
that his daughter must retire. The Schwellenberg 
raged like a wild cat. *'A scene almost horrible 25 
ensued," says Miss Burney. ^'She was too much 
enraged for disguise, and uttered the most furious ex- 
pressions of indignant contempt at our proceedings. I 
am sure she would gladly have confined us both in the 
Bastile, had England such a misery, as a fit place to 30 
bring us to ourselves, from a daring so outrageous 
against imperial wishes." This passage deserves no- 
tice, as being the only one in the Diary, so far as we 
have observed, which shows ]\Iiss Burney to have 
been aware that she was a native of a free country, 35 



MADAME D'AEBLAY. 211 

that she could not be pressed for a waiting maid 
against her will, and that she had just as good a right 
to live, if she chose, in Saint Martin 's Street, as Queen 
Charlotte had to live at Saint James's. 

5 The Queen promised that, after the next birthday. 
Miss Burney should be set at liberty. But the promise 
was ill kept ; and her Majesty showed great displeasure 
at being reminded of it. At length Frances was in- 
formed that in a fortnight her attendance should 

10 cease. "I heard this," she says, ''with a fearful pre- 
sentiment I should surely never go through another 
fortnight, in so weak and languishing and painful a 
state of health. ... As the time of separation 
approached, the Queen's cordiality rather diminished, 

15 and traces of internal displeasure appeared some- 
times, arising from an opinion I ought rather to have 
struggled on, live or die, than to quit her. Yet I am 
sure she saw how poor was my own chance, except 
])y a change in the mode of life, and at least ceased 

20 to wonder, though she could not approve." Sweet 
Queen ! What noble candour, to admit that the undu- 
tifulness of people, who did not think the honour of 
adjusting her tuckers worth the sacrifice of their 
own lives, was, though highly criminal, not altogether 

25 unnatural ! 

We perfectly understand her Majesty's contempt 
for the lives of others where her own pleasure was 
concerned. But what pleasure she can have found in 
having Miss Burney about her, it is not so easy to 

30 comprehend. That Miss Burney was an eminently 
skilful keeper of the robes is not very probable. Few 
women, indeed, had paid less attention to dress. Now 
and then, in the course of five years, she had been 
asked to read aloud or to write a copy of verses. But 

35 better readers might easily have been found: and 



212 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

her verses were worse than even the Poet Laureate's 
Birthday Odes. Perhaps that economy, which was 
among her Majesty's most conspicuous virtues, had 
something to do with her conduct on this occasion. 
Miss Burney had never hinted that she expected as 
retiring pension ; and indeed would gladly have given 
the little that she had for freedom. But her Majesty 
knew what the public thought, and what became her 
own dignity. She could not for very shame suffer a 
woman of distinguished genius, who had quitted aio 
lucrative career to wait on her, who had served her 
faithfully for a pittance during five years, and whose 
constitution had been impaired by labour and watch- 
ing, to leave the court without some mark of royal 
liberality. George the Third, who, on all occasions 15 
where Miss Burney was concerned, seems to have be- 
haved like an honest, goodnatured gentleman, felt this, 
and said plainly that she was entitled to a provision. 
At length, in return for all the misery which she had 
undergone, and for the health which she had sacri-20 
ficed, an annuity of one hundred pounds was granted 
to her, dependent on the Queen's pleasure. 

Then the prison was opened, and Frances was free 
once more. Johnson, as Burke observed, might have 
added a striking page to his poem on the Vanity of 25 
Human Wishes, if he had lived to see his little Burney 
as she went into the palace and as she came out of it. 

The pleasures, so long untasted, of liberty, of friend- 
ship, of domestic affection, were almost too acute for 
her shattered frame. But happy days and tranquil 30 
nights soon restored the health which the Queen's 
toilette and Madame Schwellenberg's card-table had 
impaired. Kind and anxious faces surrounded the 
invalid. Conversation the most polished and brilliant 
revived her spirits. Travelling was recommended to 35 



MADAME D'ARBLAY. 213 

her; and she rainl)led hy easy journeys from cathedral 
to cathedral, and from watering place to watering 
place. She crossed the New Forest, and visited Stone- 
henge and Wilton, the cliffs of Lyme, and the beautiful 

5 valley of Sidmouth. Thence she journeyed to Powder- 
ham Castle, and by the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey 
to Bath, and from Bath, when the winter was ap- 
proaching, returned well and cheerful to London. 
There she visited her old dungeon, and found her suc- 

10 cessor already far on the way to the grave, and kept 
to strict duty, from morning till midnight, with a 
sprained ankle and a nervous fever. 

At this time England swarmed with French exiles 
driven from their country by the Revolution. A coL 

i5ony of these refugees settled at Juniper Hall, in Sur- 
rey, not far from Norbury Park, where Mr. Locke, 
an intimate friend of the Burney family, resided. 
Frances visited Norbury and was introduced to the 
strangers. She had strong prejudices against them; 

20 for her Toryism was far beyond, we do not say that 
of Mr. Pitt, but that of Mr. Reeves ; and the inmates 
of Juniper Hall were all attached to the constitution 
of 1791, and were therefore more detested by the roy- 
alists of the first emigration than Petion or Marat. 

25 But such a woman as ]\Iiss Burney could not long 
resist the fascination of that remarkable society. She 
had lived with Johnson and Wyndham, with ]\Irs. 
Montague and ]\Irs. Thrale. Yet she was forced to 
own that she had never heard conversation before. 

30 The most animated eloquence, the keenest observa- 
tion, the most sparkling wit, the most courtly grace, 
were united to charm her. For Madame de Stael 
was there, and M. de Talleyrand. There too was M. 
de Narbonne, a noble representative of French aris- 

Satocracy; and with M. de Narbonne was his friend 



214 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

and follower General D'Arblay, an honourable and 
amiable man, with a handsome person, frank soldier- 
like manner, and some taste for letters. 

The prejudice which Frances had conceived against 
the constitutional royalists of France rapidly van- 5 
ished. She listened with rapture to Talleyrand and 
Madame de Stael, joined with M. D'Arblay in exe- 
crating the Jacobins and in weeping for the unhappy 
Bourbons, took French lessons from him, fell in love 
with him, and married him on no better provision than lo 
a precarious annuity of one hundred pounds. 

Here the Diary stops for the present. We will, 
therefore, bring our narrative to a speedy close, by 
rapidly recounting the most important events which 
we know to have befallen Madame D'Arblay during 15 
the latter part of her life. 

M. D'Arblay 's fortune had perished in the general 
wreck of the French Revolution; and in a foreign 
country his talents, whatever they may have been, 
could scarcely make him rich. The task of providing 20 
for the family devolved on his wife. In the year 1796, 
she published by subscription her third novel, Ca- 
milla. It was impatiently expected by the public ; and 
the sum which she obtained for it was, we believe, 
greater than had ever at that time been received for 25 
a novel. We have heard that she cleared more than 
three thousand guineas. But we give this merely as a 
rumour. Camilla, however, never attained popularity 
like that which Evelina and Cecilia had enjoyed ; and 
it must be allowed that there was a perceptible falling 30 
off, not indeed in humour or in power of portraying 
character, but in grace and in purity of style. 

We have heard that, about this time, a tragedy by 
Madame D'Arblay was performed without success. 
We do not know whether it was ever printed; nor 35 



MADAME D'AEBLAY. 215 

indeed have we had time to make any researches into 
its history or merits. 

During the short truce which followed the treaty of 
Amiens, M. D'Arblay visited France. Lauriston and 

5 La Fayette represented his claims to the French gov- 
ernment, and obtained a promise that he should be 
reinstated in his military rank. M, D'Arblay, how- 
ever, insisted that he should never be required to serve 
against the countrymen of his wife. The First Consul, 

10 of course, would not hear of such a condition, and 
ordered the general's commission to be instantly 
revoked. 

Madame D'Arblay joined her husband at Paris, a 
short time before the war of 1803 broke out, and re- 

I5mained in France ten years, cut off from almost all 
intercourse with the land of her birth. At length, 
when Napoleon was on his march to Moscow, she with 
great difficulty obtained from his ministers permission 
to visit her own country, in company with her son, 

20 who was a native of England. She returned in time 
to receive the last blessing of her father, who died in 
his eighty-seventh year. In 1814 she published her 
last novel, the Wanderer, a book which no judicious 
friend to her memory will attempt to draw from the 

25 oblivion into which it has justly fallen. In the same 
year, her son Alexander was sent to Cambridge. He 
obtained an honourable place among the wranglers of 
his year, and was elected a fellow of Christ's College. 
But his reputation at the University was higher than 

3Q might be inferred from his success in academical con- 
tests. His French education had not fitted him for the 
examinations of the Senate House ; but, in pure mathe- 
matics, we have been assured by some of his competi- 
tors that he had very few equals. He went into 

acthe church, and it was thought likely that he would 



216 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

attain high eminence as a preacher ; but he died before 
his mother. All that we have heard of him leads us to 
believe that he was such a son as such a mother de- 
served to have. In 1832, Madame D 'Arblay published 
the memoirs of her father ; and on the sixth of Jan- 5 . 
uary, 1840, she died in her eighty-eighth year. 

We now turn from the life of Madame D'Arblay 
to her writings. There can, we apprehend, be little 
difference of opinion as to the nature of her merit, 
whatever differences may exist as to its degree. She 10 
was emphatically what Johnson called her, a charac- 
ter-monger. It was in the exhibition of human pas- 
sions and whims that her strength lay; and in this 
department of art she had, we think, very distin- 
guished skill. 15 

But in order that we may, according to our duty as 
kings at arms, versed in the laws of literary prece- 
dence, marshal her to the exact seat to which she is 
entitled, we must carry our examination somewhat 
further. 20 

There is, in one respect, a remarkable analogy be- 
tween the faces and the minds of men. No two faces 
are alike ; and yet very few faces deviate very widely 
from the common standard. Among the eighteen 
hundred thousand human beings who inhabit London, 25 
there is not one who could be taken by his acquaint- 
ance for another ; yet we may walk from Paddington 
to Mile End without seeing one person in whom any 
feature is so overcharged that we turn round to stare 
at it. An infinite number of varieties lies between 30 
limits which are not very far asunder. The specimens 
which pass those limits on either side, form a very 
small minority. 

It is the same with the characters of men. Here, 
too, the variety passes all enumeration. But the cases 35 



MADAME D'AEBLAY. 217 

in which the deviation from the common standard is 
striking and grotesque, are very few. In one mind 
avarice predominates; in another, pride; in a third, 
love of pleasure ; just as in one countenance the nose 

5 is the most marked feature, while in others the chief 
expression lies in the brow, or in the lines of the 
mouth. But there are very few countenances in which 
nose, brow, and mouth do not contribute, though in 
unequal degrees, to the general effect ; and so there are 

10 very few characters in which one overgrown propen- 
sity makes all others utterly insignificant. 

It is evident that a portrait painter, who was able 
only to represent faces and figures such as those which 
we pay money to see at fairs, would not, however 

15 spirited his execution might be, take rank among the 
highest artists. He must always be placed below 
those who have skill to seize peculiarities which do 
not amount to deformity. The slighter those pecu- 
liarities, the greater is the merit of the limner who can 

20 catch them and transfer them to his canvas. To 
paint Daniel Lambert or the living skeleton, the pig 
faced lady or the Siamese twins so that nobody can 
mistake them, is an exploit within the reach of a sign- 
painter. A third-rate artist might give us the squint 

25 of Wilkes, and the depressed nose and protuberant 
cheeks of Gibbon. It would require a much higher 
degree of skill to paint two such men as Mr. Canning 
and Sir Thomas Lawrence, so that nobody who had 
ever seen them could for a moment hesitate to assign 

30 each picture to its original. Here the mere carica- 
turist would be quite at fault. He would find in 
neither face any thing on which he could lay hold 
for the purpose of making a distinction. Two ample 
bald foreheads, two regular profiles, two full faces 

35 of the same oval form, would baffle his art; and he 



218 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

would be reduced to the miserable shift of writing 
their names at the foot of his picture. Yet there 
was a great difference; and a person who had seen 
them once would no more have mistaken one of them 
for the other, than he would have mistaken ]\Ir. Pitts 
for Mr. Fox. But the difference lay in delicate 
lineaments and shades, reserved for pencils of a rare 
order. 

This distinction runs through all the imitative arts. 
Foote 's mimicry was exquisitely ludicrous, but it was lo 
all caricature. He could take off only some strange 
peculiarity, a stammer or a lisp, a Northumbrian burr 
or an Irish brogue, a stoop or a shuffle. *'If a man," 
said Johnson, ' ' hops on one leg, Foote can hop on one 
leg. ' ^ Garrick, on the other hand, could seize those 15 
differences of manner and pronunciation, which, 
though highly characteristic, are yet too slight to be 
described. Foote, we have no doubt, could have made , 
the Haymarket theatre shake with laughter by imitat- 
ing a conversation between a Scotchman and a Som- 20 
ersetshireman. But Garrick could have imitated a 
conversation between two fashionable men, both mod- 
els of the best breeding. Lord Chesterfield, for exam- 
ple, and Lord Albemarle, so that no person could 
doubt which was which, although no person could say 25 
that, in any point, either Lord Chesterfield or Lord 
Albemarle spoke or moved otherwise than in con- 
formity with the usages of the best society. 

The same distinction is found in the drama and in 
fictitious narrative. Highest among those who have 30 
exhibited human nature by means of dialogue, stands 
Shakspeare. His variety is like the variety of nature, 
endless diversity, scarcely any monstrosity. The char- 
acters of which he has given us an impression, as vivid 
as that which we receive from the characters of our 35 



MADAME D'ARBLAY. 219 

own associates, are to be reckoned by scores. Yet in 
all these scores hardly one character is to be found 
which deviates widely from the common standard, and 
which we should call very eccentric if we met it in real 

5 life. The silly notion that every man has one ruling 
passion, and that this clue, once known, unravels all 
the mysteries of his conduct, finds no countenance in 
the plays of Shakspeare. There man appears as he is, 
made up of a crowd of passions, which contend for the 

10 mastery over him and govern him in turn. What is 
Hamlet's ruling passion? Or Othello's? Or Harry 
the Fifth's? Or Wolsey's? Or Lear's? Or Shy- 
lock's? Or Benedick's? Or Macbeth 's? Or that 
of Cassius ? Or that of Falconbridge ? But we might 

15 go on forever. Take a single example, Shylock. Is 
he so eager for money as to be indifferent to revenge ? 
Or so eager for revenge as to be indifferent to money ? 
Or so bent on both together as to be indifferent to the 
honour of his nation and the law of Moses? All his 

20 propensities are mingled with each other, so that, in 
trying to apportion to each its proper part, we find the 
same difficulty which constantly meets us in real life. 
A superficial critic may say, that hatred is Shylock 's 
ruling passion. But how many passions have amalga- 

25 mated to form that hatred ? It is partly the result of 
wounded pride: Antonio has called him dog. It is 
partly the result of covetousness : Antonio has hin- 
dered him of half a million; and, when Antonio is 
gone, there will be no limit to the gains of usury. It 

30 is partly the result of national and religious feeling : 
Antonio has spit on the Jewish gaberdine; and the 
oath of revenge has been sworn by the Jewish Sab- 
bath. We might go through all the characters which 
we have mentioned, and through fifty more in 

35 the same way ; for it is the constant manner of Shak- 



220 MACAULAY^S ESSAYS. 

speare to represent the human mind as lying, not 
under the absolute dominion of one despotic pro- 
pensity, but under a mixed government, in which 
a hundred powers balance each other. Admirable as 
he was in all parts of his art, we most admire him 5 
for this, that while he has left us a greater number 
of striking portraits than all other dramatists put 
together, he has scarcely left us a single caricature. 

Shakspeare has had neither equal nor second. But 
among the writers who, in the point which we have lo 
noticed, have approached nearest to the manner of the 
great master, we have no hesitation in placing Jane 
Austen, a woman of whom England is justly proud. 
She has given us a multitude of characters, all, in a 
certain sense, commonplace, all such as we meet every 15 
day. Yet they are all as perfectly discriminated from 
each other as if they were the most eccentric of human 
beings. There are, for instance, four clergymen, none 
of whom, we should be surprised to find in any parson- 
age in the kingdom, ]\Ir. Edward Ferrars, I\Ir. Henry 20 
Tilney, Mr. Edmund Bertram, and Mr. Elton. They 
are all specimens of the upper part of the middle class. 
They have all been liberally educated. They all lie 
under the restraints of the same sacred profession. 
They are all young. They are all in love. Not one 25 
of them has any hobby horse, to use the phrase of 
Sterne. Not one has a ruling passion, such as we read 
of in Pope. Who would not have expected them to be 
insipid likenesses of each other? No such thing. 
Harpagon is not more unlike to Jourdain, Joseph 30 
Surface is not more unlike to Sir Lucius 'Trigger, 
than every one of Miss Austen's young divines to all 
his reverend brethren. And almost all this is done 
by touches so delicate, that they elude analysis, that 
they defy the powers of description, and that we know 35 



MADAME D'AEBLAY. 221 

them to exist only by the general effect to which they 
have contributed. 

A line must be drawn, we conceive, between artists 
of this class, and those poets and novelists whose skill 
5 lies in the exhibiting of what Ben Jonson called hu- 
mours. The words of Ben are so much to the purpose 
that we will quote them : 

''When some one peculiar quality 
Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw 
10 All his affects, his spirits, and his powers, 

In their confluxions all to run one way. 
This may be truly said to be a humour." 

There are undoubtedly persons, in whom humours 
such as Ben describes have attained a complete ascen- 

15 dency. The avarice of Elwes, the insane desire of Sir 
Egerton Brydges for a barony to which he had no 
more right than to the crown of Spain, the malevolence 
which long meditation on imaginary wrongs generated 
in the gloomy mind of Bellingham, are instances. The 

20 feeling which animated Clarkson and other virtuous 
men against the slave trade and slavery, is an 
instance of a more honourable kind. 

Seeing that such humours exist, we cannot deny 
that they are proper subjects for the imitations of art. 

25 But we conceive that the imitation of such humours, 
however skilful and amusing, is not an achievement of 
the highest order; and, as such humours are rare in 
real life, they ought, we conceive, to be sparingly intro- 
duced into works which profess to be pictures of real 

30 life. Nevertheless, a writer may show so much genius 
in the exhibition of these humours as to be fairly enti- 
tled to a distinguished and permanent rank among 
classics. The chief seats of all, however, the places on 
the dais and under the canopy, are reserved for the 



222 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

few who have excelled in the difficult art of portraying 
characters in which no single feature is extravagantly 
overcharged. 

If we have expounded the law soundly, we can have 
no difficulty in applying it to the particular case be- 5 
fore us. ]\Iadame D'Arblay has left us scarcely any 
thing but humours. Almost every one of her men and 
women has some one propensity developed to a morbid 
degree. In Cecilia, for example, Mr. Delvile never 
opens his lips without some allusion to his own birth lo 
and station; or Mr. Briggs, without some allusion to- 
the hoarding of money; or Mr. Hobson, without be- 
traying the self-indulgence and self-importance of a 
purse-proud upstart ; or Mr. Simkins, without uttering 
some sneaking remark for the purpose of currying fa- 15 
vour with his customers; or ]\Ir. Meadows, without 
expressing apathy and weariness of life; or Mr. Al- 
bany, without declaiming about the vices of the rich 
and the misery of the poor ; or Mrs. Belfield, without 
some indelicate eulogy on her son ; or Lady Margaret, 20 
without indicating jealousy of her husband. ]\Ior- 
rice is all skipping, officious impertinence, Mr. Gosport 
all sarcasm. Lady Honoria all lively prattle. Miss La- 
rolles all silly prattle. If ever Madame D'Arblay 
aimed at more, we do not think that she succeeded 25 
well. 

"We are, therefore, forced to refuse to Madame 
D'Arblay a place in the highest rank of art; but we 
cannot deny that, in the rank to which she belonged, 
she had few equals, and scarcely any superior. The 30 
variety of humours which is to be found in her novels 
is immense ; and though the talk of each person sepa- 
rately is monotonous, the general effect is not mo- 
notony, but a very lively and agreeable diversity. Her 
plots are rudely constructed and improbable, if we 35 



MADAME D'AEBLAY. 223 

consider them in themselves. But they are admirably 
framed for the purpose of exhibiting striking groups 
of eccentric characters, each governed by his own pe- 
culiar whim, each talking his own peculiar jargon, and 

5 each bringing out by opposition the oddities of all the 
rest. We will give one example out of many which 
occur to us. All probability is violated in order to 
bring Mr. Delvile, Mr. Briggs, Mr. Hobson, and Mr. 
Albany into a room together. But when we have 

10 them there, we soon forget probability in the exqui- 
sitely ludicrous effect which is produced by the conflict 
of four old fools, each raging with a monomania of 
his own, each talking a dialect of his own, and each 
inflaming all the others anew every time he opens his 

15 mouth. 

]\Iadame D'Arblay was most successful in comedy, 
and indeed in comedy which bordered on farce. But 
we are inclined to infer from some passages, both in 
Cecilia and Camilla, that she might have attained 

20 equal distinction in the pathetic. We have formed 
this judgment, less from those ambitious scenes of 
distress which lie near the catastrophe of each of 
those novels, than from some exquisite strokes of 
natural tenderness which take us here and there by 

25 surprise. We would mention as examples, Mrs. Hill *s 
account of her little boy's death in Cecilia, and the 
parting of Sir Hugh Tyrold and Camilla, when the 
honest baronet thinks himself dying. 

It is melancholy to think that the whole fame of 

30 Madame D 'Arblay rests on what she did during the 
earlier half of her life, and that every thing which she 
published during the forty-three years which preceded 
her death, lowered her reputation. Yet we have no 
reason to think that at the time when her faculties 

35 ought to have been in their maturity, they were 



224 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

smitten with any blight. In the Wanderer, we catch 
now and then a gleam of her genius. Even in the 
Memoirs of her father, there is no trace of dotage. 
They are very bad ; but they are so, as it seems to us, 
not from a decay of power, but from a total perversion 5 
of power. 

The truth is, that Madame D 'Arblay^s^jle^ under- 
went a gradual and most pernicious change, a change 
which, in degree at least, we believe to be unexampled 
in literary history, and of which it may be useful to lo 
trace the progress. 

When she wrote her letters to Mr. Crisp, her early 
journals, and her first novel, her style was not indeed 
brilliant or energetic ; but it was easy, clear, and free 
from all offensive faults. When she wrote Cecilia she 15 
aimed higher. She had then lived much in a circle of 
which Johnson was the centre ; and she was herself one 
of his most submissive worshippers. It seems never 
to have crossed her mind that the style even of his 
best writings was by no means faultless, and that 20 
even had it been faultless, it might not be wise in her 
to imitate it. Phraseology which is proper in a disqui- 
sition on the Unities, or in a preface to a Dictionary, 
may be quite out of place in a tale of fashionable life. 
Old gentlemen do not criticize the reigning modes, nor 25 
do young gentlemen make love, with the balanced epi- 
thets and sonorous cadences which, on occasions of 
great dignity, a skilful writer may use with happy 
effect. 

In an evil hour the author of Evelina took the Ram- 30 
bier for her model. This would not have been wise 
even if she could have imitated her pattern as well as 
Hawkesworth did. But such imitation was beyond her 
power. She had her own style. It was a tolerably 
good one ; and might, without any violent change, have 35 



MADAME D'AEBLAY. 225 

been improved into a very good one. She deter- 
mined to throw it away, and to adopt a style in which 
she could attain excellence only by achieving an almost 
miraculous victory over nature and over habit. She 

5 could cease to be Fanny Burney ; it was not so easy to 
become Samuel Johnson. 

In Cecilia the change of manner began to appear. 
But in Cecilia the imitation of Johnson, though not 
always in the best taste, is sometimes eminently 

10 happy ; and the passages which are so verbose as to 
be positively offensive, are few, Inhere were people 
who whispered that Johnson had assisted his young 
friend, and that the novel owed all its finest passages 
to his hand. This was merely the fabrication of envy. 

15 Miss Burney 's real excellences were as much beyond 
the reach of Johnson, as his real excellences were 
beyond her reach. He could no- more have written the 
Masquerade scene, or the Vauxhall scene, than she 
could have written the Life of Cowley or the Review 

20 of Soame Jenyns. But we have not the smallest 
doubt that he revised Cecilia, and that he retouched 
the style of many passages. We know that he was 
in the habit of giving assistance of this kind most 
freely. Goldsmith, Hawkesworth, Boswell, Lord 

25 Hailes, Mrs. Williams, were among those who obtained 
his help. Nay, he even corrected the poetry of Mr. 
Crabbe, whom, we believe, he had never seen. When 
]\Iiss Burney though of writing a comedy, he prom- 
ised to give her his best counsel, though he owned 

30 that he was not particularly well qualified to advise on 
matters relating to the stage. We therefore think it in 
the highest degree improbable that his little Fanny, 
when living in habits of the most affectionate inter- 
course with him, would have brought out an important 

35 work without consulting him ; and, when we look into 



226 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

Cecilia, we see such traces of his hand in the grave 
and elevated passages as it is impossible to mistake. 
Before we conclude this article, we will give two or 
three examples. 

When next Madame D'Arblay appeared before the 5 
world as a writer, she was in a very different situation. 
She would not content herself with the simple English 
in which Evelina had been written. She had no 
longer the friend who, we are confident, had polished 
and strengthened the style of Cecilia. She had to lo 
write in Johnson's manner without Johnson's aid. 
The consequence was, that in C^illa every passage 
which she meant to be fine is detestable ; and that the 
book has been saved from condemnation only by the 
admirable spirit and force of those scenes in which she 15 
was content to be familiar. 

But there was to be a still deeper descent. After 
the publication of Camilla, Madame D'Arblay resided 
ten years at Paris. During those years there was 
scarcely any intercourse between France and England. 20 
It was with difficulty that a short letter could occa- 
sionally be transmitted. All Madame D'Arblay 's 
companions were French. She must have written, 
spoken, thought, in French. Ovid expressed his fear 
that a shorter exile might have affected the purity of 25 
his Latin. During a shorter exile, Gibbon unlearned 
his native English. Madame D'Arblay had carried a 
bad style to France. She brought back a style which 
we are really at a loss to describe. It is a sort of 
broken Johnsonese, a barbarous patois, bearing the 30 
same relation to the language of Rasselas, which the 
gibberish of the Negroes of Jamaica bears to the 
English of the House of Lords. Sometimes it reminds 
us of the finest, that is to say, the vilest parts, of Mr. 
Gait 's novels ; sometimes of the perorations of Exeter 35 



MADAME D'AEBLAY. 227 

Hall ; sometimes of the leading articles of the Morning 
Post. But it most resembles the puffs of J\Ir. Rowland 
and Dr. Goss. It matters not -what ideas are clothed 
in such a style. The genius of Shakspeare and Bacon 

5 united would not save a work so written from general 
derision. 

It is only by means of specimens that we can enable 
our readers to judge how widely Madame D'Arblay's 
three styles differed from each other. 

10 The following passage was written before she be- 
came intimate with Johnson. It is from Evelina. 

''His son seems weaker in his understanding, and more gay 
in his temper; but his gaiety is that of a foolish overgrown 
schoolboy, whose mirth consists in noise and disturbance. He 

15 disdains his father for his close attention to business and love 
of money, though he seems himself to have no talents, spirit, 
or generosity to make him superior to either. His chief delight 
appears to be in tormenting and ridiculing his sisters, who in 
return most cordially despise him. Miss Branghton, the eldest 

20 daughter, is by no means ugly ; but looks proud, ill-tempered, 
and conceited. She hates the city, though without knowing why; 
for it is easy to discover she has lived nowhere else. Miss Polly 
Branghton is rather pretty, very foolish, very ignorant, very 
giddy, and, I believe, very goodnatured. ' ^ 

25 This is not a fine style, but simply perspicuous and 
agreeable. We now come to Cecilia, written during 
Miss Burney's intimacy with Johnson; and we leave 
it to our readers to judge whether the following pas- 
sage was not at least corrected by his hand. 

30 *'lt is rather an imaginary than an actual evil, and though 
a deep wound to pride, no offence to morality. Thus have I 
laid open to you my whole heart, confessed my perplexities, 
acknowledged my vainglory, and exposed with equal sincei'ity 
the sources of my doubts and the motives of my decision. But 

35 now, indeed, how to proceed I know not. The difficulties which 
are yet to encounter I fear to enumerate, and the petition I 
have to urge F have scarce courage to mention. My family, 
mistaking ambition for honour, and rank for dignity, have long 
planned a sjdendid connection for me, to which, though my 

40 invariable repugnance has stopped any advances, their wishes 



228 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

and their views immoveably adhere. I arm but too certain they 
will now listen to no other. I dread, therefore, to make a trial 
where I despair of success. I know not how to risk a prayer 
with those who may silence me by a command." 

Take now a specimen of Madame D'Arblay's later 5 
style. This is the way in which she tells us that her 
father, on his journey back from the Continent, 
caught the rheumatism. 

"He was assaulted, during his precipitated return, by the 
rudest fierceness of wintry elemental strife; through which, 10 
wuth bad accommodations and innumerable accidents, he became 
a prey to the merciless pangs of the acutest spasmodic rheuma- 
tism, which barely suffered him to reach his home, ere, long and 
piteously, it confined him, a tortured prisoner, to his bed. Such 
was the check that almost instantly curbed, though it could not 15 
subdue, the rising pleasure of his hopes of entering upon a new 
species of existence — that of an approved man of letters; for 
it was on the bed of sickness, exchanging the light wines of 
Prance, Italy, and Germany, for the black and loathsome 
potions of the Apothecaries ' Hall, writhed by darting stitches, 20 
and burning with fiery fever, that he felt the full force of that 
sublunary equipoise that seemed evermore to hang suspended 
over the attainment of long-sought and uncomnron felicity, just 
as it is ripening to burst forth with enjoyment! " 

Here is a second passage from Evelina. 25 

"Mrs. Selwyn is very kind and attentive to me. She is 
extremely clever. Her understanding, indeed, may be called 
masculine; but unfortunately her manners deserve the same 
epithet; for, in studying to acquire the knowledge of the other 
sex, she has lost all the softness of her own. In regard to 30 
myself, however, as I have neither courage nor inclination to 
argue with her, I have never been personally hurt at her want 
of gentleness, a virtue which nevertheless seems so essential 
a part of the female character, that I find myself more awkward 
and less at ease with a wonrnn who wants it than I do with a 35 
man. " 

This is a good style of its kind; and the following 
passage from Cecilia is also in a good style, though not 
in a faultless one. We say with confidence either Sam 
Johnson or the Devil. 



MADAME D'ARBLAY. 229 

''Even the imperious Mr. Delvile was more supportable here 
than in London. Secure in his own castle, he looked round him 
with a pride of power and possession which softened while it 
swelled him. His superiority was undisputed: his will was with- 

5 out control. He was not, as in the great capital of the king- 
dom, surrounded by competitors. No rivalry disturbed his 
peace; no equality mortified his greatness. All he saw were 
either vassals of his power, or guests bending to his pleasure. 
He abated, therefore, considerably the stern gloom of his 

10 haughtiness, and soothed his proud mind by the courtesy of 

, condescension. ' ' 

We will stake our reputation for critical sagacity on 
this, that no such paragraph as that which we have 
last quoted can be found in any of Madame D'Ar- 
isblay's works except Cecilia. Compare with it the fol- 
lowing sample of her later style. 

"If beneficence be judged by the happiness which it diffuses, 
whose claim, by that proof, shall stand higher than that of Mrs. 
Montagu from the munificence with which she celebrated her 

20 annual festival for those hapless artificers who perform the most 
abject offices of any authorized calling, in being the active guar- 
dians of our blazing hearths? Not to vain glory, then, but to 
kindness of heart, should be adjudged the publicity of that 
superb charity which made its jetty objects, for one bright 

25 morning, cease to consider themselves as degraded outcasts from 
all society." 

We add one or two shorter samples. Sheridan re- 
fused to permit his lovely wife to sing in public, and 
was warmly praised on this account by Johnson. 

30 ''The last of men," says Madame D'Arblay, ''was 
Doctor Johnson to have abetted squandering the deli- 
cacy of integrity by nullifying the labours of talents. ' ' 
The Club, Johnson's Club, did itself no honour by 
rejecting on political grounds two distinguished men, 

35 one a Tory, the other a Whig. Madame D'Arblay 
tells the story thus : "A similar ebullition of political 
rancour with that which so difficultly had been con- 
quered for Mr. Canning foamed over the ballot box to 
the exclusion of Mr. Rogers." 



230 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

An offence punishable with imprisonment is, in this 
language, an offence ''which produces incarceration." 
To be starved to death is " to sink from inanition into 
nonentity." Sir Isaac Newton is ''the developer of 
the skies in their embodied movements"; and Mrs. 5 
Thrale, when a party of clever people sat silent, is 
said to have been ' ' provoked by the dullness of a taci- 
turnity that, in the midst of such renowned interlocu- 
tors, produced as narcotic a torpor as could have been 
caused by a dearth the most barren of all human facul- lo 
ties. ' * In truth, it is impossible to look at any page of 
Madame D'Arblay's later works without finding flow- 
ers of rhetoric like these. Nothing in the language of 
those jargonists at whom Mr. Gosport laughed, noth- 
ing in the language of Sir Sedley Clarendel, ap-i5 
proaches this new Euphuism. 

It is from no unfriendly feeling to Madame D'Ar- 
blay's memory that we have expressed ourselves so 
strongly on the subject of her style. On the contrary, 
we conceive that we have really rendered a service to 20 
her reputation. That her later works were complete 
failures, is a fact too notorious to be dissembled : and 
some persons, we believe, have consequently taken up 
a notion that she was from the first an overrated 
writer, and that she had not the powers which were 25 
necessary to maintain her on the eminence on which 
good luck and fashion had placed her. We believe, on 
the contrary, that her early popularity was no more 
than the just reward of distinguished merit, and would 
never have undergone an eclipse, if she had only been 30 
content to go on writing in her mother tongue. If she 
failed when she quitted her own province, and at- 
tempted to occupy one in which she had neither part 
nor lot, this reproach is common to her with a crowd 
of distino^uished men. Newton failed when he turned 35 



MADAME D'AEBLAY. 231 

from the courses of the stars, and the ebb and flow of 
the ocean, to apocalyptic seals and vials. Bentley 
failed when he turned from Homer and Aristophanes, 
to edite the Paradise Lost. Inigo failed when he 

5 attempted to rival the Gothic churches of the four- 
teenth century. Wilkie failed when he took it into 
his head that the Blind Fiddler and the Rent Day 
were unworthy of his powers, and challenged compe- 
tition with Lawrence as a portrait painter. Such 

10 failures should be noted for the instruction of pos- 
terity ; but they detract little from the permanent rep- 
utation of those who have really done great things. 

Yet one word more. It is not only on account of 
the intrinsic merit of Madame D'Arblay's early works 

15 that she is entitled to honourable mention. Her ap- 
pearance is an important_epoch in our literary history. 
Evelina was the first tale written by a woman, and 
purporting to be a picture of life and manners, that 
lived or deserved to live. The Female Quixote is no 

20 exception. That work has undoubtedly great merit, 
when considered as a wild satirical harlequinade ; but, 
if we consider it as a picture of life and manners, we 
must pronounce it more absurd than any of the ro- 
mances which it was designed to ridicule. 

25 Indeed, most of the popular novels which preceded 
Evelina were such as no lady would have written; 
and many of them were such as no lady could with- 
out confusion own that she had read. The very name 
of novel was held in horror among religious people. 

30 In decent families, which did not profess extraordi- 
nary sanctity, there was a strong feeling against all 
such works. Sir Anthony Absolute, two or three years i 
before Evelina appeared, spoke the sense of the great / 
body of sober fathers and husbands, when he pro-/ 

35nounced the circulating library an evergreen tree of 



232 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

diabolical knowledge. This feeling, on the part of the 
grave and reflecting, increased the evil from which it 
had sprung. The novelist having little character to 
lose, and having few readers among serious people, 
took without scruple liberties which in our generation 5 
seem almost incredible. 

IMiss Burney did for the English novel what Jeremy 
/Collier did for the English drama ; and she did it in a 
'better way. She first showed that a tale might be 
written in which both the fashionable and the vulgar 10 
life of London might be exhibited with great force, 
and with broad comic humour, and which yet should 
not contain a single line inconsistent with rigid moral- 
ity, or even with virgin delicacy. She took aAvay the 
reproach which lay on a most useful and delightful 15 
species of composition. She vindicated the right of 
her sex to an equal share in a fair and noble province 
of letters. Several accomplished women have followed 
in her track. At present, the novels which we owe to 
English ladies form no small part of the literary glory 20 
of our country. No class of works is more honourably 
distinguished by fine observation, by grace, by delicate 
wit, by pure moral feeling. Several among the suc- 
cessors of ]\Iadame D 'Arblay have equalled her ; two, 
we think, have surpassed her. But the fact that she 25 
has been surpassed gives her an additional claim to 
our respect and gratitude; for, in truth, we owe to 
her not only Evelina, Cecilia, and Camilla, but also 
Mansfield Park and the Absentee. 



NOTES 

Tho Introduction to this volume lias boon prepared \Yitli a specific 
view to affording a starting-point for an analytical study of Macanlay's 
style and matter. These notes are therefore confined almost exclusively 
to corrections of tho text and the elucidation of obscure points. 
Explanations of names and unusual words not discussed here shpuld 
be sought in the Glossary. 

OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

In the latter part of his life, after he had settled down In earnest 
to the composition of his History of England, Macaulay ceased to 
write essays, as he had long been accustomed to do, for the Edinburgh 
Review. He was, however, induced to turn aside from his major 
occupation long enough to contribute five articles to the Encyclopwdia 
Britannica, namely, the biographies of Atterbury, Bunyan, Goldsmith, 
Johnson, and Pitt. The sketch of Goldsmith belongs to the year 1856, 
and is therefore one of the latest productions of his pen. The article 
has been retained in the new (eleventh) edition of the Britannica, 
with slight corrections and retouches by Austin Dobson, which will 
bo found duly noted below. 

Page 41 : Line 15. At Pallas. Late investigations make it probable 
that his birth-place was Smith-Hill House, Elphin, Roscommon, the 
residence of his mother's father. 

42 : 12. An old quartermaster. Namely, Tliomas Byrne, who had 
been a soldier in Queen Anne's wars in Spain. Compare the "village 
master" who "taught his little school," in The Deserted Village, lines 
193-218. 

42: 34. The Olorious and Immortal Memory. It was long the cus- 
tom of Protestant admirers to toast, in these terms, the memory of 
William III, who became king of England after tho Revolution of 1688, 
when James was deposed and banished. 

43 : 8. The adinirahle portrait of him at KnowJe. This should be 
Knole, or Knole Park, which is twenty miles southeast of London. It 
is a great baronial estate, the seat of Lord Sackville. The portrait 
referred to is by Reynolds, and is the original of the copy to be seen 
in the National Gallery. 

43 : 26. In his seventeenth year. Read "sixteenth year" ; the date 
was 1744. 

43 : 35. Is still read witJi interest. The pane of glass containing 
the name is now in the manuscript room of Trinity College. 

233 



234 NOTES. 

44: 30. A dispute a'bout play. That is, a quarrel over cards. 

45 : 3. A Generous kinsman. His uncle, Mr. Contarine. 

45: 31. iSfo regardless of truth. While there are diflBculties and 
discrepancies in Goldsmith's narrative of this occurrence, Austin 
Dobson (Life of Goldsmith, p. 40) considers that it is not necessary 
to conclude that Goldsmith had not, at some time or place, seen and 
heard Voltaire. 

46 : 14. A swarm of beggars, ichich made its nest in Axe Yard. 
This rests on Goldsmith's statement that he had once lived "among 
the beggars in Axe-Lane." Possibly Goldsmith referred to the old 
"Axe and Bottle Yard," in Southwark, which became King Street 
in 1768 ; or, more likely, there was really an "Axe Lane," and 
Macaulay has confused the two names. These slight inaccuracies 
are highly interesting, as showing what reliance Macaulay placed 
on his remarkable memory. 

46 : 33. A miserable court, . . . Fleet Ditch . . . Break- 
neck Steps. The court was Green Arbor Court, near Ludgate Hill, 
in central London. A full description of the region, now quite obliter- 
ated by the South-Eastern and Chatham Railway works, may be found 
in Notes and Queries, Series III, volume vii, page 233 (1865). The 
following extract is pertinent : "Originally, perhaps Breakneck Court 
had a few steps down to, as it was called, the 'Ditch-Side' ; though 
we are not called upon to suppose that at any time Oliver Goldsmith, 
Bishop Percy, or anybody else, had to 'climb from the brink of Fleet 
Ditch,' — which, by the bye. was covered in to a point beyond the 
south corners of Ludgate Hill and Fleet Street, and occupied by the 
old Fleet Market, as early as 1737, full twenty years before Goldsmith 
went to reside above the Breakneck Steps of our own times." 
Washington Irving visited Green Arbor Court before its destruction, 
and described it as a region of washerwomen, "to judge from the old 
garments and frippery that fluttered from every window." 

47 : 9. The once far-famed shop. The shop of John Newbery, 
a publisher and originator of children's books. 

49: 13. The novel ichich was thus ushered into the world. For 
this story, see Boswell's Life of Johnson for the year 1763. Austin 
Dobson makes the following comment : "Unfortunately for this time- 
honored version of the circumstances, it has of late years been dis- 
covered that as early as October, 1762, Goldsmith had already sold 
a third of the Vicar to one Benjamin Collins, of Salisbury, a printer, 
by whom it was eventually printed for F. Newbery [the successor of 
John Newbery], and it is difficult to reconcile this fact with Johnson's 
narrative." 

51 : 35. The finest poem in the Latin language. The De Rerum 
Natura of Lucretius, a poem setting forth the philosophy of Epi- 



NOTES. 235 

cnreanism ; a noble poem, and rightly understood, a by no means 
ignoble philosophy. Macaulay is quite out of his element when he 
undertakes to express an opinion in the field of philosophy or morality. 
See Introduction, 16. 

57: 4. Damning ivifh faint praise. From Tope's Trologue to the 
8atires, 1. 201 : 

"Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer." 

51) : 4. He died on the third of April. The correct date is April 4th. 

59 : 6. T7ie spot teas not marked. A flat stone, bearing Goldsmith's 
name, was placed there In 1868. 

59 : 14. A little poem appeared. This was Retaliation, a poem 
containing playful but quite kindly epitaphs upon various friends of 
Goldsmith ; e. g.: 

"Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can 
An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man . . ." 

"Here Reynolds is laid, and, to tell you my mind. 
He has not left a wiser or better behind . , ." 

59: 35. Johnson wrote the inscription. The inscription is written 
in Latin and contains the famous line, NnllKm quod tetigit non ornavit. 
It has been translated by Croker as follows : 

"Of Oliver Goldsmith — a Poet, Naturalist, and Historian, 
who left scarcely any style of writing untouched, and touched 
nothing that he did not adorn ; of all the passions, whether 
smiles were to be moved or tears, a powerful yet gentle 
master ; in genius, sublime, vivid, versatile ; in style, elevated, 
clear, elegant — the love of Companions, the fidelity of Friends, 
and the veneration of Readers, have by this monument 
honored the memory. He was born in Ireland, at a place 
called Pallas, in the parish of Forney and county of Longford, 
on the 29th November, 1731. Educated at the University of 
Dublin, and died in London, 4th April, 1774." 

60: 16. Fortunate in his Mographers. Sir James Prior's Life of 
Goldsmith appeared in 1837, Washington Irving's in 1844-49, and John 
Forster's in 1848, second edition 1854. Since then have appeared 
William Black's biography in 1878, and Austin Dobson's in 1888. 

FREDERIC THE GREAT 

This essay appeared in the Edinburgh Review for April, 1842, and 
warf one of the later of Macaulay's contributions to that journal, 
following the essays on Clive and Hastings, and just preceding those 
on Madame D'Arblay and Addison. In December, 1841, he wrote 



236 NOTES. ^ 

to Napier, the editor : "You do not seem to like what T suggestea 
about Henry the Fifth. Nor do I. on full consideration. What do 
you say to an article on Frederic the Great? Tom Campbell is 
bringing out a book about his majesty. . . . There are many 
characters and events which will occupy little or no space in my 
'History," yet with which, in the course of my historical researches, 
I shall necessarily become familiar. There can be no better instance 
than Frederic the Great. ... In order to write the 'History of 
England' it will be necessary to turn over all the memoirs, and all 
the writings, of Frederic, connected with us, as he was, in a most 
Important war. In this way my reviews would benefit by my historical 
researches, and yet would not forestall my 'History,' or materially 
impede its progress." A month later, he wrote : "As to Frederic, 
I do not see that I can deal with him well under seventy pages. 
I shall try to give a life of him after the manner of Plutarch. That, 
I think, is my forte. The paper on Clive took greatly. That on 
Hastings, though in my own opinion by no means equal to that on 
Clive, has been even more successful. I ought to produce something 
much better than either of those articles with so excellent a subject 
as Frederic. Keep the last place for me if you can. I greatly regret 
my never having seen Berlin and Potsdam." 

When the article was forwarded to Napier, it brought forth some 
criticism from him in regard to the style, to which Macaulay's response 
is interesting : "The charge to which I am most sensible is that of 
interlarding my sentences with French terms. It is however, a practice 
to which I am extremely averse, and into which I could fall only by 
inadvertence. I do not really know to what you allude. . . , The 
other charge, I confess, does not appear to me to be equally serious. 
I certainly should not, in regular history, use some of the phrases 
which you censure. But I do not consider a review of this sort as 
regular history, and I really think that, from the highest and most 
unquestionable authority, I could vindicate my practice. Take Addison, 
the model of pure and graceful writing. In his Spectators I find 
'wench,' 'baggage,' 'queer old put,' 'prig,' 'fearing that they should 
smoke the Knight.' All these expressions I met this morning, in 
turning over two or three of his papers at breakfast. I would no more 
use the word 'bore' or 'awkward squad' in a composition meant to be 
uniformly serious and earnest, than Addison would in a state paper 
have called Louis an 'old put,' or have described Shrewsbury and 
Argyle as 'smoking' the design to bring in the Pretender. But I did 
not mean my article to be uniformly serious and earnest. If you judge 
of it as you would judge of a regular history, your censure ought 
to go very much deeper than it does, and be directed against the 
substance as well as against the diction. The tone of many passages, 
nay, of whole pages, would justly be called flippant in a regular history. 
But I conceive that this sort of composition has its own character 
and its own laws." 

In regard to the book which Macaulay was professedly reviewing, 



NOTES. 237 

and which he found at least "an amusing compilation," little need 
be said. Thomas Campbell was a much bettor poet than he was a 
historian. Some time after his death, Macaulay wrote of hira, with 
less consideration than in this essay : "I looked at the Life of 
Campbell, by a foolish Dr. Beattie : a glorious specimen of the book- 
making of this age. Campbell may have written in all his life three 
hundred good lines, rather less than more. His letters, his conversa- 
tion, were mere trash." But, as Macaulay says, his memoirs of 
Frederic were only a compilation. Today, the best history of L'rederic 
for English readers is the monumental work of Carlyle, published 
about twenty years afterward. 

This essay of Macaulay's can be made the basis of some very 
interesting historical studies by following out the analogies that 
are frequently suggested between the characters of men and the 
posture of events in Frederic's time and those in other periods of 
history. On Macaulay's faculty for drawing analogies, see Intro- 
duction, 8. 

61 : 20. 7'he Prussian Monarchy. Prussia is the principal state 
of the German Empire ; its king is the German emperor. The 
state originated, as Macaulay says, with the mark, or marquisate, 
of Brandenburg, which in 1618 united with the duchy of Prussia. 
It developed in that century under Frederic William, the "Groat 
Elector" (1620-16S8), whose son and successor, Frederic, assumed 
the title of King of Prussia in 1701. The succession then was as 
follows : 

Frederic I, 1701-1713. 

Frederic William I, 1713-1740. 

Frederic II, "The Great," 1740-1786. 

The chief events of Frederic the Great's reign were the acquisition 
of Silesia in 1742, and the Seven Years' War of 1756-1763 against 
the alliance of Austria, France, and Russia, which, with Great 
Britain, made up the other great European states. The result of this 
war raised Prussia to a position among these powers, and redounded 
also greatly to the profit of Great Britain, who assisted her. This 
latter fact partly accounts for the interest which British historians 
have taken in Frederic the Great. 

C4 : 22. One Irislivian. This was probably Kirkman. described 
by Carlyle (Frederic the Qrcai, Bk. IV, chap, v.) : "James Kirkman, 
an Irish recruit of good inches, cost him 1200?. boforo ho could 
be got inveigled, shipped and brought safe to hand. The documents 
are yet in existence . . . .Giant 'Macdoll' — who was to bo married, 
no consent asked on either side, to the tall young woman . . .,— 
he also was an Irish Giant, his name probably McDowal." 

86 : 11. Daughter of the Cwsars. That is, daughter of the long 
line of emperors, who, from the time of the Roman Empire, were 
often called by the generic name of Cwsar, the word passing into the 
German Kaiser and the Russian Czar. 



238 NOTES 

92: 32. A Richelieu or a Mazarin, etc. Macaulay has selected 
here five French ministers of the 17th century who successively held 
positions in the royal cabinet, and who present a descending scale 
of ability and renown. 

107 : 9. The vengeance ichich he took on Freron and Desfonlaines. 
As an example of the vengeance which Voltaire took on the critics 
and journalists of the time who incurred his displeasure, the following 
epigram may be cited : 

"L'autre jour, au fond d'un vallon, 
Un serpent mordit Jean Freron. 
Que pensez-vous qu'il arriva? 
Ce fut le serpent qui creva." 

The other day, down in the brake, 
Freron was bitten by a snake. 
Alas ! you think. But you are wide ; 
It was the snake, not he, that died. 

109 : 2. The magnanimous patience with tchich Milton and Bentlept 
etc. See the dignified passage in Paradise Lost, Book VII, 23-31 : 

"Standing on Earth, not rapt above the pole, 
More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged 
To hoarse or mute, though fallen on evil days. 
On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues. 
In darkness, and with dangers compassed round, 
And solitude ; yet not alone, while thou 
Visit'st my slumbers nightly, or when Morn 
Purples the East. Still govern thou my song, 
Urania, and fit audience find, though few." 

As for Bentley, it was apparently only once that he showed such 
patience of temper and "returned no railing for the railing of his 
enemies." (Macaulay: Essay on Sir William Temple.) 

117 : 9. His long tear. This refers to Voltaire's antagonism to the 
Bible and most of the dogmas of the Church, which he prosecuted with 
so much vigor in his retirement at Ferney, 1758-1778. As an example 
of his "repairing cruel wrongs," he spent several years in getting jus- 
tice done to the family of one Jean Galas, a Protestant who had been 
put to death on the false charge of killing one of his sons to prevent 
his turning Catholic. On the whole, Macaulay is far from doing 
adequate justice to the greatness of Voltaire. He finds him such a 
good mark for the kind of persiflage he likes to indulge in that the 
better qualities of the man are scarcely allowed to appear. 

120 : 6. Clothed in the Roman purple. That is, wearing the royal 
robes of the descendants of the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire 
and clothed with the authority of the Church of Rome. The persecu- 



NOTES 239 

tions referred to are those which took place with such frequoncy 
in France during the century following the Reformation. Consult 
the article on "Huguenots" in any encyclopedia. 

121 : 16. While the lion and tiger ivere tearing each other. See 
Aesop's fable of the Lion, the Tiger, and the Jackal (or, as it stands 
in some translations, the Fox). 

125: 15. A less forniidahJe confederacy. The League of Cambray 
against Venice in 1508 ; the Grand Alliance of The Hague against 
France in 1701 ; and the Alliance of European powers against Napoleon 
in 1813. 

128: 22. In India, the sovereignty of the Carnatic, etc. See 
Macaulay's Essay on Clive. 

131 : 14. Suhjectos tanquam suos, viles tanquam alienos. Macaulay 
evidently quotes from memory. The passage is in Tacitus, Hist. i. 37. 
Otho is speaking about the favorite Vinius : nunc et suhjectos nos 
hahuit tanquam suos, et viles ut alienos; "as it is, he has deemed us 
as much under his control as though we belonged to him, and as 
worthless as though we belonged to another man." 

132 : 19. A hundred and thirty years before. The reference is to 
the Thirty Years' War. It began when the Protestants of Bohemia 
rose against Ferdinand II and chose for their king the elector palatine 
Frederic V. They were at first successful, but after the emperor had 
allied himself with Spain and with the Catholic League under Maxi- 
milian of Bavaria, they were signally defeated at the White Hill, near 
Prague, 1620, putting an end to Protestantism in Bohemia. 

134: 8, 20. Olory had departed. Made a by-icord. Macaulay's fre- 
quent indebtedness to the Bible for phrases and turns of expression 
should not be overlooked. Compare 156, 23, 

136 : 1. Hateful to gods and men. A familiar phrase in the clas- 
sics ; compare Pope's Odyssey, xxii. 382 : "For dear to gods and men 
is sacred song." 

138 : 2. Then the King ansicers. Of course, Macaulay is translat- 
ing into his own style. One may be sure that the short, snappy sen- 
tences which follow were never written by a German. 

139: 21. From his hermitage near the Alps. Namely, the mag- 
nificent chateau and estate of Ferney, near Geneva, where Voltaire 
spent the last twenty years of his life. See the earlier paragraph 
beginning "He took refuge on the beautiful shores of Lake Leman." 

149 : 19. A defeat far more tremendous. The victory of Napoleon 
over the Prussians at Jena, October 14, 1806. 

155 : 10. The retirement of Mr. Pitt. The resignation of Pitt as 
Secretary of State in 1761 and the succession of Lord Bute, together 
with the other matters here referred to, are recounted at length by 
Macaulay in his two essays on William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. It was 
while Pitt was supporting the subsidies tu Frederic that he assured his 
countrymen "that th(>y should be no losers, and that he would conquer 



240 NOTES 

America for them in Germany." Of course the success of Frederic 
against the French meant advantage to the English in their own con- 
test against the French, who were disputing America with them. 

158 : 9. The tear icas over. This closing paragraph is a good pres- 
entation of the material effects of war. It ought to be supplemented 
by a similar picture of the moral effects, but for that we should have 
to look to a writer more deeply concerned with moral issues than 
Macaulay was — to Carlyle, for instance, or Ruskin. 

MADAME D'ARBLAY 

Madame D'Arblay, better known to the world as Frances or Fanny 
Burney, the author of Evelina and Cecilia, died in 1840, aged eighty- 
eight. In 1842 a considerable portion of her Journal and Letters, 
edited by her niece, Charlotte Barrett, was published, the remainder 
appearing in 1846. The work has been several times reprinted, a good 
edition in four volumes appearing in 1893. Like Boswell's Ldfe of 
Johnson, it is of great value as an intimate and faithful portraiture of 
the social conditions of the time. A proper appreciation of Macaulay's 
essay is scarcely possible without some acquaintance with this work ; 
and there is important additional matter to be found in a supplement. 
The Early Diary of Frances Burney, 1768-1778, edited by Annie R. Ellis 
and published in 1889. 

When the first volumes of the Journal appeared, Macaulay under- 
took to review it for the Edinburgh Review. He wrote to Napier : "I 
have no objection to try 'Madame D'Arblay' for the October number. 
I have only one scruple — that some months ago Leigh Hunt told me 
that he thought of proposing that subject to you, and I approved of 
his doing so. Now, I should have no scruple in taking a subject out 
of Brougham's hands, because he can take care of himself, if he thinks 
himself ill-used. But I would not do anything that could hurt the 
feelings of a man whose spirit seems to be quite broken by adversity, 
and who lies under some obligation to me." As Macaulay was busy 
with his History, the review did not appear until January, 1843. It 
cannot be regarded, on the whole, as a very successful essay. Mr. J. 
Cotter Morison goes so far as to say that "the articles on Madame 
D'Arblay's Memoirs and on Frederic the Great are thin, crude, per- 
functory, and valueless, except as first-rate padding for a periodical 
review." This is to be accounted for, no doubt, by the fact that 
Macaulay was then so deeply absorbed in his History. At the same 
time, the essay exhibits nearly all the familiar traits of the author's 
mind — its wide, if somewhat superficial, range, its enormous command 
of facts and illustrations, and its unfailing energy and vivacity. 

With the present text, the attempt has been made to supply, in the 
notes or the glossary, all the information in regard to the persons and 
places alluded to by Macaulay that could conceivably be desired. As 
explained in the Preface, a few matters have been omitted because of 
their general familiarity, and a few others because there is absolutely 



NOTES 241 

nofhinj? more to bo said about thorn than is said in the text. It la 
Macaulay's inveterate habit to be concroto and explicit. When the 
lojiil family moves. It moves "from Kow to Windsor, and from Windsor 
bacli to Kew ;" but the moving is the only matter of importance. When 
Miss Burney arranges with her publisher to have her letters addressed 
to her at the "Orange Coffee House," Macaulay repeats both the fact 
and the name. It is quite possible that Macaulay himself knew noth- 
ing more about the Orange Coffee House, and there is certainly no 
reason why we should try to locate it exactly among the several thou- 
sand similar establishments of its time. After all, Macaulay's allusions 
are seldom recondite, except when he descends to some matter of such, 
purely local or temporary interest that it is scarcely worth the trouble 
of ferreting it out. 

162 : 13. Gathered to the novels of Afra Behn. This is an 
interesting example of how an author may repeat himself, perhaps 
unconsciously. Twelve years earlier, in his essay on Mr. Rohert Mont- 
(/omery's Poems, Macaulay wrote: "It is, indeed, amusing to turn over 
some late volumes of periodical works, and to see how many immortal 
productions have, within a few months, been gathered to the poems of 
r.lackmore and the novels of Mrs. Behn." The word "gathered" is 
echoed from the Biblical phrase, "gathered unto their fathers," Judges 
ii. 10, where it is perhaps a figure drawn from the harvest. Cp. 
134, 8, and note. 

164: 16. A son distinguished hy learning. The Rev. Charles 
Burney (1757-1817), an eminent classical scholar and collector of 
rare books. 

167: 31. St. Clement's church. The church of St. Clement Danes, 
where Dr. Johnson was a regular and devout attendant. His seat was 
in the north gallery, and a brass tablet, commemorating the fact, was 
in 1851 affixed to a pillar adjoining it. 

167: 35. Burney's admiration . . . bordered on idolatry. In 
the essay as originally printed, this statement is supported by the fol- 
lowing instance : 

"He gave a singular proof of this at his first visit to Johnson's ill- 
furnished garret. The master of the apartment was not at home. The 
enthusiastic visitor looked about for some relic which lie could carry 
away, but he could see nothing lighter than the chairs and the fire- 
irons. At last he discovered an old broom, tore some bristles from the 
stump, wrapped them in silver paper, and departed as happy as Louis 
IX when the holy nail of St. Denis was found." 

rossibly some one pointed out to Macaulay a slip of memory here, 
which caused him to cancel the passage. For by consulting Boswell 
{Life of Johnson, July, 1781) one discovers that Dr. Burney carried 
away the bristle of Johnson's hearth-broom, not for himself, but for 
a friend, William Bewley, who was a distant admirer of Johnson. 

174: 1. Do to Dryden the justice which has never been done hy 
Wordsworth. Wordsworth was a leader of the romantic revolt against 



242 NOTES 

the classical school of poetry. In an essay published with his 181J 
volume of poems, he condemned as "vague, bombastic, and senseless' 
the lines in Dryden's The Indian Emperor, beginning : 

"All things are hush'd as Nature's self lay dead ; 
The mountains seem to nod their drowsy head. 
The little Birds in dreams their songs repeat. 
And sleeping Flowers beneath the Night-dew sweat." 

1S2 : 33. A bad xcriter of our oicn time. This refers to John Wil 
son Croker, a politician and writer, who published an edition of Bos 
well's Life of Johnson in 1831. He was a political and personal enemj 
of Macaulay's, and Macaulay's feelings toward him may be seen ir 
the latter's review of his book — Macaulay's first essay on Johnson. 

184: 11. The Recollections of Madame D'ArWay. These were the 
Memoirs of Dr. Bitrney, published in 1832, and referred to by Macaulaj 
in the third paragraph of the present essay. 

184: 15. A catalogue as long as that in the second hook of tin 
Iliad. Namely, the famous catalogue of the ships and the hosts thai 
went on the expedition against Troy. 

197 : 30. The last great master of Attic eloquence. Lucian, a Greet 
writer, born in Syria about the year 120. The quotation is from hit 
satire Upon Hired Companions, or, as the title runs in Fowler's trans 
lation, The Dependent Scholar. 

208: 14. Only a promise, never performed, of a goicn. Though i1 
is not a matter of vital import in the records of time, let it be said 
in justice to the sweet Queen and Madame Schwellenberg that Miss 
Burney got the gown — a "lilac tabby." 

212 : 1, Worse than even the Poet Laureate's Birthday Odes. 
William Whitehead was poet-laureate from 1757 to 1785. His verses 
were freely ridiculed. 

213 : 22. The constitution of 1791. The constitution drawn up by 
the French National Assembly, embodying the principles of the French 
Revolutionists — a declaration of popular rights against privilege. The 
"royalists of the first emigration" were the nobles who fled from 
France after the fall of the Bastile in July, 1789. 

214: 33. A tragedy hy Madame D'Arhlay. This tragedy, entitled 
Edicy and Elgiva, was acted by Kemble and Mrs. Siddons at Drury 
Lane in 1795, but failed. It has never been printed. 

219: 32. Sworn hy the Jewish Sahhath. See The Merchant of 
Venice, iv. 1, 36. 

220 : 26. To use the phrase of Sterne. In Tristram Shandy, chapter 
viii : "De gustihus non est disputundum ; — that is, there is no dis- 
puting against Hobby-horses Be it known to you that I 

keep a couple of pads myself, upon which ... I frequently ride 
out and take the air." 



NOTES 243 

220 : 27. Such as loe read of in Pope. It was Pope who gave cur- 
rency to the phrase "the ruling passion," which occurs once in his 
Essay on Man (ii. 138) and five times in his Moral Essays. The two 
best known examples are in the latter (i. 263, and iii. 153) : 

"And you, brave Cobham, to the latest breath, 
Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death." 

"The ruling passion, be it what it will. 
The ruling passion conquers reason still." 

221 : 6. The words of Ben. The quotation is from the Introduction 
to Every Man out of his Humour. 

225: 20. But ice have not the smallest doubt that he revised 
Cecilia. Macaulay is probably wrong. In the Diary, Nov. 4, 1782, Dr. 
Johnson is reported to have said of Cecilia^ "I never saw one word- 
before it was published." 

226 : 24. Ovid expressed his fear. Ovid, the Roman poet, was, at 
the age of fifty, banished from Rome to a place among the barbarous 
Goths and Sarmatians. He wrote much thereafter of the hardship of 
his lot in being deprived of the courtly society of the Roman capital. 

226 : 26. Gibbon unlearned his native English. At the age of six- 
teen, Gibbon was sent by his father to Switzerland, under the tutelage 
of a Calvinist minister, with the object of reclaiming him from Roman 
Catholicism. He attained there such a mastery of French that at the 
end of his five years' exile he found French more natural and familiar 
to him than English. 

227: 2. The puffs of Mr. Rowland and Dr. Goss. The allusion hero 
is to the advertising of certain nostrums by contemporary quacks. Two 
passages in Macaulay's essay on Mr. Robert Montgomery's Poems give 
us all the light that is needed : 

"All the pens that ever were employed in magnifying Bish's lucky 
otfice, Romanis's fleecy hosiery, I'ackwood's razor straps, uud Row- 
land's Kalydor. — all tbe placard-bearers of Dr. Eady, — all the wall- 
chalkers of Day and Martin, — seem to have taken service with the 
poets and novelists of this generation." 

"The fulsome eulogy makes its appearance on the covers of all the 
Reviews and Magazines, with 'Times' or 'Globe' aflSxed, though the 
editors of the Times and the Globe have no more to do with it than 
with Goss's way of making old rakes young again." 

229 : 27. Sheridan refused fo permit his lovely wife to sing in 
public. Sheridan married Elizabeth Ann Lindley, a celebrated beauty 
and talented singer. At the time of their marriage, she was under an 
engagi>ment to sing which Sheridan was with dilliculty persuaded to 
allow her to fulfill. When once the question was raised whether he 
was not either foolishly delicate or foolishly proud. Dr. Johnson 
declared : "He resolved wisely and nobly, to be sure. He is a brave 
man. Would not a gentleman be disgraced by having his wife singing 



244 NOTES 

publicly for hire ? No, sir, there can be no doubt here. I know not 
if I should not prepare myself for a public singer as readily as let 
my wife be one." (Boswell's Life of Johnson, April, 1775.) 

231 : 4. Inigo failed. By Inigo is meant Inigo Jones'. Since he is 
not elsewhere spoken of by his first name alone, this is either a bit of 
unwarranted familiarity on Macaulay's part, or, quite as likely, another 
slight slip of memory ; for, writing rapidly, he may have recalled only 
the more distinctive name and used it under the impression that it 
was the surname. Jones was an artist and architect of the time of 
James the First, who was frequently associated with Ben Jonson in the 
production of court masques, preparing the scenery and costumes for 
them. He was engaged to restore the cathedral of St. Paul's, and 
planned to rebuild it. After building a magnificent west front in the 
classic style, trouble arose and the rebuilding was stopped. Jones was 
then condemned for placing a classic portico before a Gothic cathedral ; 
and this is probably all the basis there is to the charge of "failure." 

232: 25. Tico, ice thinks have surpassed her. These two, as might 
be guessed even without the mention of Mansfield Park and The 
Ahsentce, are Jane Austen and Maria Kdgeworth. 



GLOSSARY 



Absolute, Sir Anthony. A char- 
acter in Sheridan's comedy, 
The Rivals (1775). 231:32. 

Agincourt. The scene of the 
famous victory of Henry V 
over the French against great 
odds, 1415. 143:10. 

Agujarl, Lucretia (d. 1783). A 
popular Italian singer who was 
once engaged at the Pantheon, 
London, to sing two songs 
nightly, for which she was 
paid £100. 168:33. 

A't'as fieioiv, etc. "Ajax the less, 
by no means so great as the 
Telamonian Ajax, but far 
less." Iliad ii. 527. 184:30. 

Alba, or Alva, Duke of (1508- 
1582). A Spanish general, 
uncle of Charles V. He was 
notorious for his cruelty as 
governor of the Netherlands, 
where he established the 
"Council of Blood," putting to 
death 1800 persons in three 
months. 151:1. 

Albemarle, Lord. A number of 
distinguished men have borne 
this title. Macaulay probably 
refers to the second Earl, 
William Anne Keppel, who 
was an ambassador to Paris 
and a contemporary of Ches- 
terfield. 218:24. 

Alclna. A fairy and enchantress, 
in the poems of Boiardo; the 
personification of carnal pleas- 
ures. She changed her lovers 
into stones, trees, or beasts at- 
will. 106:9. 

Alecto. One of the Furies, sum- 



moned from the lower world 
by Juno to enrage the mother 
of Lavinia against the lat- 
ter's marriage with Aeneas. 
Aeneid vii. 323. ff. 210:9. 

Aleppo. A city in Asiatic Tur- 
key. 64:21. 

Alexandrine. A verse of six 
iambic feet; the leading meas- 
ure in French heroic and dra- 
matic poetry. 89:13. 

Algarotti, Count Francesco (1712- 
1764). A noted Italian man of 
letters and art. 102:22. 

Amiens, Treaty of. The treaty 
of 1802 between England, 
France, and Spain. 215:4. 

Anstey, Christopher (1724-1805). 
A writer of occasional verses. 
181:24. 

Antichrist. The coming of the 
Antichrist is foretold in 1 John 
ii. 18. 117:32. 

Arminius (18 B. C.-21 A. D.). A 
German chieftain; liberator of 
Germany from Roman domin- 
ion. 143:31. 

Ashburnham, Lord. A Groom 
of the Stole and First Lord of 
the Bedchamber; hence his 
"gold key." 169:13. 

Augustus. The first Roman em- 
peror, under whom Roman 
literature reached its highest 
point. 101:21. 

Augustus III. Elector of Sax- 
ony, 1733-1763. He supported 
Prussia in the first Silesian 
war, but in the second, and in 
the Seven Years' War. he was 
on the side of Austria. 125:6. 



245 



246 



GLOSSAEY. 



Austen, Jane (1775-1817). An 
English novelist, author of 
Sense and Sensibility, Pride and 
Prejudice, Mansfield Park, etc. 
220:13. 

Badajoz. A city of Portugal, 
often besieged — by the Allies 
in 1705, by the French in 1811, 
and by the British in 1811-12. 
80:26. 

Bannockburn. The scene of the 
victory of Robert Bruce of 
Scotland over the English un- 
der Edward II, 1314. 143:10. 

banshee. "A woman of the 
fairies." See Scott's Ladij of 
the Lake, III, vii, and Scott's 
note thereon. 42:15. 

Baretti, Giuseppe (1719-1789). 
An Italian scholar who taught 
in London; a friend of John- 
son and Mrs. Thrale; author 
of an Italian and English dic- 
tionary. He once stabbed a 
man in self-defence, and Dr. 
Johnson was called into court 
to testify to his character. See 
Boswell's Life, Oct. 20, 1769. 
168:23; 184:19. 

Bareuth. Properly Bayreuth, or 
Baireuth. A former German 
principality, in what is now 
the northern part of Bavaria. 
66:13. 

Barry, James (1741-1806). An 
Irish painter, who was brought 
by Burke from Dublin to Lon- 
don and introduced to Reyn- 
olds and others. 168:24. 

Bastiani, Abb6. An Italian ad- 
venturer who succeeded in 
getting into the good graces of 
Frederic the Great. He died 
at Potsdam in 1787. 102:22. 

Bayard, Chevalier de (1475-1524). 
A celebrated French knight. 



"the knight without fear and 
without reproach." 69:33. 

Bayes. A character in the Duke 
of Buckingham's farce. The 
Rehearsal (1671), meant to 
ridicule contemporary aspir- 
ants for literary laurels, and 
particularly Dryden, the poet- 
laureate. Bayes is represented 
as the author of a mock trag- 
edy. 51:26; 186:34. 

Beauclerk, Topham (1739-1780). 
An English book collector of 
refined tastes; a friend of Dr. 
Johnson. 55:10. 

Beggar's Opera, The. By John 
Gay. It was produced in Lon- 
don in 1728 and ran for sixty- 
three nights. 176:27. 

Behn, Afra, or Aphra (1640- 
1689). One of the earliest fe- 
male writers of England, pop- 
ular in her day as a dramatist 
and novelist. 162:14. 

Belle- Isle, Duke of. Charles 
Louis Augustus Fouquet (1684- 
1761). One of the chief com- 
manders of the French forces 
in the War of the Austrian 
Succession. He captured 

Prague, 1741. 83:6. 

Bellingham, John. A bankrupt, 
who, having a grievance 
against the government, as- 
sassinated the prime minis- 
ter, Perceval Spencer, in the 
lobby of the House of Com- 
mons, May 11, 1812. 221:19. 

Bender. A town and fortress in 
Russia, near which Charles 
XII of Sweden resided, 1709- 
1712. 84:21. 

Bentley, Richard (1662-1742). A 
famous English classical 
scholar, long engaged in a 
controversy over the genuine- 
ness of certain "Epistles of 
Phalaris." 109:3. His rather 



GLOSSARY. 



247 



unsympathetic edition of Mil- 
ton's Paradise Lost appeared 
in 1732. 231:2. 

Betty, William Henry West 
(1791-1874). "Master Betty," 
"The Young Roscius." He 
went on the stage at Belfast 
and Dublin at the age of 
twelve, playing such parts as 
Romeo, Hamlet, and Prince Ar- 
thur. Two years later, at 
London, he added the roles of 
Richard III and Macbeth. He 
retired from the stage in 1823. 
172:29. 

Blackmore, Sir Richard (1650- 
1729). An English physician; 
author of a long poem on The 
Creation. 162:15. 

Blenheim. In Bavaria; scene of 
the defeat of the French and 
Bavarians by the Allies under 
the Duke of Marlborough and 
Prince Eugene, 1704. 84:20. 

3oileau - Despreaux, Nicholas 
(1636-1711). A famous French 
critic and poet, who aimed to 
be an arbiter of taste and 
elegance in literary art. 144:18. 

Borodino. A village in Russia, 
the scene of one of Napoleon's 
costly victories in 1812. 80:27. 

Bossuet (1627-1704). A cele- 
brated French pulpit orator. 
74:30. 

Boswell, James (1740-1795). The 
admirer and biographer of Dr. 
.Johnson. 55:25. 

3ourbons. The royal house of 
France, Spain, and Naples. 
The first French king of the 
line was Henry IV, 1589. 119:26. 

mass Otho. A brass or bronze 
coin of the reign of Otho, or 
Otto, the Great (912-973). The 
only bronze coins of his reign 
were struck in the colonies, at 



Antloch, and are very rare 
64:31. 

Brighton. A seaside resort in 
Sussex, developed in the latter 
part of the ISth century. "The 
Old Steine" (or "Steyne") is 
a square with a grass-plot and 
fountains, named from a reef 
which jutted into the sea 
there. 185:10. 

Brownrigg, Elizabeth. A notori- 
ous London midwife, who bar- 
barously murdered her appren- 
tice and was hanged at Ty- 
burn, 1767. 68:6. 

Bruce, James (1730-1794). A cele- 
brated African traveller, who 
penetrated to the source of 
the Blue Nile. 169:10. 

Bruhl, Count Heinrich von. A 
Saxon politician v/ho took sides 
against Prussia in the Seven 
Years' War. 116:30. 

Brydges, Sir Samuel Egerton 
(1762-1837). A barrister and 
bibliographer, who urged his 
brother to claim the barony of 
Chandos. 221:16. 

Buffon (1707-1788). A celebrated 
French naturalist. 107:28. 

bulk. A shed. 106:25. 

Calderon (1600-1681). A Spanish 
dramatist and poet. 73:11. 

Calvinist. An adherent of John 
Calvin, a celebrated theologian 
of the time of the Reforma- 
tion. 67:23. 

Cambray. 126:10. See note on 
125:15. 

Canning, George (1770-1827). An 
English statesman and orator; 
premier in 1827. 217:27. 

Capuchins. A mendicant order 
of Franciscan monks. 117:31. 

Carolan, or O'Carolan, Turlogh 
(16707-1738). An Irish wander- 



248 



GLOSSAEY. 



ing bard, who became blind 
from the small -poX. 42:25. 

Carteret, John, Lord (1690-1763). 
An English statesman, oppo- 
nent of Walpole; became sec- 
retary of state in 1742, 85:26. 

Catalans. A people of Catalonia, 
a former province in north- 
eastern Spain, who were con- 
quered and forced to give up 
their constitution by Philip V 
In 1714. 155:32. See Utrecht, 
Peace of. 

Cave and Osborne. London book- 
sellers of the 18th century. 
See Macaulay's Essay on John- 
son, paragraph 13, or Boswell's 
Life of Johnson. 71:19. 

Cavendish, Lord Frederick (1729- 
1803). An English ensign (later 
field-marshal) who served in 
Germany in 1757. 145:35. 

Caxtons. Books printed by Will- 
iam Caxton, the first English 
printer (between 1474 and 
1491). 64:10. 

"Celestial colloquy sublime." 
Paradise Lost, VIII, 455. 192:20. 

Chambery. A city of Savoie, 
France, with manufactures of 
silk gauze. 200:2. 

Chapter. The members of a re- 
ligious order, or of an order of 
knights. 196:20. 

Chamier, Anthony (1725-1780). 
An English government oflScial 
of French extraction; a friend 
of Dr. Johnson. 55:23. 

Chauh'eu, Abbot of (1639-1720). 
A French poet who wrote 
drinking and love songs, and 
skeptical epistles. 136:3. 

Chesterfield, Lord (1694-1773). 
Philip Dormer Stanhope, 
statesman, wit, and letter- 
writer. 218:23. 

Cholmondeley, Mrs. A sister of 
the celebrated actress. Peg 



WoflSngton; "a very airy lady' 
(Boswell). 184:17. 

Christ Church. One of the larg- 
est and most fashionable col- 
leges of Oxford. 200:6. 

Churchill, Charles (1731-1764) 
An English poet, now little 
read; author of TJie Rosciad 
etc. 166:28. 

Cibber, Colley (1671-1757). Brit- 
ish poet-laureate, and the here 
of Pope's Dunciad. 136:12. 

Clarendel, Sir Sedley. A fop ir 
Miss Burney's third novel 
Camilla. 230:15. 

Clarkson, Thomas (1760-1846) 
An English abolitionist anc 
agitator. 221:20. 

Clive, Robert (1725-1774). Gov- 
ernor of Bengal. See Ma- 
caulay's Essay on Clive. 57:35 

Club, The. Johnson's Club, con- 
sisting of himself, Reynolds 
Burke, Goldsmith, Beauclerk 
and four others, and later Gar- 
rick, Boswell, and others. Thej 
supped together once a weel 
at the Turk's Head. 48:24. 

Colbert, Jean Baptiste (1619 
1683). A French statesman 
minister of finance unde; 
Louis XIV. 92:33. 

Colle, Charles (1709-1783). J 
French song-writer and dram 
atist. 123:20. 

Collier, Jeremy (1650-1726). Ai 
English clergyman and contro 
versialist, famous for his at 
tack upon the coarseness o 
the theater in his Short Viei 
of the Immorality and Profane 
ncss of the English Stage (1698) 
232:8. 

Colman, George, the elder (1732 
1794). A British dramatis 
and friend of Garrick. 168:22 

Commissary. Any officer dele 
gated with power from i 



GLOSSAEY. 



249 



higher authority. 63:6. 

Commodus, Emperor of Rome, 
180-192; dissipated and cruel. 
105:11. 

Conde, Prince de (1621-1688). 
"The Great Conde." A cele- 
brated French general. 91:3. 

Corneille, Pierre (1606-1684). A 
celebrated French dramatist; 
author of Le Cid, Horace, etc. 
108:30. 

Coromandel. A portion of the 
eastern coast of the Indian 
peninsula. 83:32. 

Cossacks. A warlike people of 
southern Russia, usually serv- 
ing as light cavalry. 152:12. 

Covent Garden Theater. In Bow 
Street, London; built 1731. 
53:3. 

Coventry, Lady (1733-1760). 
Maria Gunning, a famous 
Irish beauty who married the 
sixth earl of Coventry. 174:31. 

Coventry, Thomas. Lord Keeper, 
or official custodian of the 
great seal, 1625. 67:8. 

Cowper, William (1731-1800). A 
celebrated English poet. He 
began writing late in life, 
publishing nothing except a 
few hymns before 1781. 161:21. 

Crabbe, George (1754-1832). An 
English poet, author of The 
Villafjc, 1783, etc. 225:27. 

Crebillon, Prosper (1674-1762). A 
French tragic poet, and mem- 
ber of the Academy. He lived 
for the most part in poverty. 
108:14. 

Crebillon the Younger (Claude- 
Prosper, the son of Prosper). 
A French novelist who de- 
picted the social vices of his 
time. 139:28. 

Crewe, Lady (d. 1818). A fash- 
ionable beauty, and friend of 



Fox. Burke, and Sheridan. 
197:16. 

crimps. Men who made a busi- 
ness of decoying other men 
into military service. 64:22. 

Croat. A Slavonic inhabitant of 
Croatia, Hungary. The Croats 
served as light cavalry in the 
Austrian army. 88:18. 

Culloden. A Scottish moor, the 
scene of the victory of the 
Royalists over the Highland- 
ers in 1746. The Duke of Cum- 
berland led the victors. 83:27. 

Cumberland, Richard (1732-1811). 
A British dramatist, author of 
both tragedies and sentimental 
comedies, 53:15. 

Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802). 
An English naturalist (grand- 
father of Charles Darwin) who 
versified his scientific learning 
in The Botanic Garden, Loves 
of the Plants, etc. 162:11. 

De gnstibus non est disputandus 
(properly disputandum) . "About 
tastes there is no disputing." 
71:5. 

Delia Crusca. The "Delia Crus- 
cans" were a group of senti- 
mental English versifiers, in- 
cluding Robert Merry, James 
Boswell, Mrs. Piozzi, and 
others, who originally met in 
Florence about 1785. They 
took their name from the 
Florentine Accademia della 
Crusca (Academy of the 
Chaff), an association for the 
purification of the Italian 
language and literature. 162:6. 

Democritus. "The Laughing 
Philosopher." An ancient 
Greek philosopher of cheerful 
disposition. 187:19. 

Diatribe of Doctor Akakia. This 
lampoon, in which Voltaire 



250 



GLOSSARY. 



posed as Doctor Akakia (a 
Greek word meaning "without 
malice") was publicly burned 
In Paris, but was republished 
by Voltaire. 114:29. 

Dilly, Charles (1739-1807). A 
London publisher and book- 
seller. He published Boswell's 
Life of Johnson. 197:17. 

Dodsley, James. A London 
bookseller who edited a col- 
lection - of English poems in 
1782. 72:31. 

Douw, or Dow, Gerard (1613- 
1675). A noted Dutch painter 
of scenes from common life. 
173:31. 

Dunciad, The. A satirical poem 
by Pope, directed against con- 
temporary writers (1712; en- 
larged form, 1728-29). 49:24; 
114:14. 

Dundas, Henry (1742-1811). A 
Scotch statesman, friend of 
William Pitt the Younger. 
202:17. 

Dundas, Sir Lawrence. A Com- 
missary to the British army 
in Germany, who made a 
great fortune out of his of- 
fice. 58:1. 

Elector. One of the princes 
who, under the Holy Roman 
Empire, had the right of elect- 
ing the emperor. 62:9. 

Elwes of Meggott, John (1714- 
1789). A wealthy Englishman 
who was not avaricious, but 
who had a marked aversion 
to spending money on his 
personal wants, and whose 
name became a byword for 
penury. 221:15. 

Erskine, Thomas (1750-1823). A 
British jurist and orator; 
called to the bar in 1778; en- 
tered parliament 1783. 161:24. 



Eugene, Prince. An Austrian 
general, of French birth, who 
distinguished himself in the 
war of the Spanish succes- 
sion. 69:9. 

Euphuism. A highly artificial 
style of writing and speaking 
that was cultivated for a short 
period during the reign of 
Elizabeth. The name is de- 
rived from Lyly's Euphucs, the 
Anatomt/ of Wit (1579). 230:16. 

Evelyn, John (1620-1706). A sec- 
retary to the Royal Society, 
^and a virtuoso, who left 
memoirs in the form of a 
diary. 204:2. 

Exeter Hall. A building in the 
Strand, London, used for re- 
ligious and miscellaneous as- 
semblies. 226:35. 

Exons. Officers of the British 
court In command of the yeo- 
men of the royal guard. 205:8. 

Eyiau. A town in East Prussia 
where in 1807 Napoleon fought 
a bloody but indecisive battle 
against the Russians and 
Prussians. 80:27. 

False Delicacy. A comedy by 
Hugh Kelly, produced by Gar- 
rick at Drury Lane in 1768. 
51:10. 

Faistaff, Jack. The wild com- 
panion of Prince Hal. For 
his repudiation by Hal, see 
Shakespeare's Henry IV j Part 
II, Act V, sc. V. 75:33. 

Female Quixote, The (1752). A 
novel by Mrs. Charlotte Len- 
nox, meant to ridicule the ro- 
mantic school of Scudery. 
231:19. 

Femmes Savantes, Les. "The 
Learned Women." A comedy 
by Moliere. 186:13. 



GLOSSARY. 



251 



F6nelon (1651-1715). A French 
prelate and author. His works 
include The Adventures of 
Telemachus. Telemachus. the 
son of Ulysses, is the type of 
a model son. 75:26. 

Ferney. 140:21. See note on 
139:21, 

Fielding, Henry (1707-1754), An 
English novelist; author of 
Tom Jones, Amelia, etc. 161:13; 
183:27. 

First Consul. The title assumed 
.by Napoleon in 1800. 215:9. 

Fleury, Andrg (1653-1743). A 
French statesman and prelate; 
prime minister. 82:35. 

Fontenelle (1657-1757). A French 
philosopher, poet, and miscel- 
laneous writer. 45:33. 

Fontenoy. A village in Belgium; 
the scene of the costly victory 
of the French under Saxe over 
the allied forces led by the 
Duke of Cumberland, 1745. 
83:26. 

Foote, Samuel (1720-1777). A 
dramatist and actor who 
played comedy parts at Drury 
Lane, the Haymarket, and 
elsewhere. 218:10. 

Franklin (or Francklin), Thomas 
(1721-1784). A professor of 
Greek, chaplain to the Royal 
Academy, and miscellaneous 
writer. 184:25. 

Gabrielli, Catarina (1730-1796). 
An Italian singer, famous for 
her prodigality and eccentric- 
ity. She refused to appear 
before a London audience, 
though a later and lesser Ga- 
brielli (Frangoise, "La Gabri- 
ellina") sang for several sea- 
sons there about 1786. 169:2. 

Gait, John (1779-1839). A nov- 
elist who portrayed the hu- 



mors of Scottish country life; 
author of Annals of the Parish, 
etc. So long as he kept to 
the lowly life and dialect of 
his characters, he was success- 
ful. 226:35. 

Garrick, David (1717-1779). A 
celebrated English actor, man- 
ager of Drury Lane Theater, 
and friend of Dr. Johnson. 
168:6. 

Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794). A 
great English historian, author 
of The Decline and Fall of the 
Roman Empire. 183:9. 

Gideon. The fifth judge of Israel. 
He was a leader of his peo- 
ple in the defeat of the 
Midianite host {Judges viii. 
10). 145:6. 

Godfrey of Bouillon (1061-1100). 
A leader of the first Crusades. 
150:35. 

Godwin, William (1756-1836). An 
English political writer, and 
author of the once popular 
novel, Caleb Williams (1794). 
162:10. 

Golden Bull. A bull, or edict, is- 
sued by Charles IV at the 
Diet of Nuremberg, 1356, de- 
termining the method of elect- 
ing German emperors. 70:27. 

Gold Stick in Waiting, An of- 
ficial of the royal household, 
who bears a gilt stick on state 
occasions. See the article on 
the "Royal Household" in the 
Encijc. Britannica. 203:29. 

Goodman's Fields, A London 
theater of the 18th century, 
made famous by David Gar- 
rick. 164:2. 

Gosport, Mr. A character in 
Miss Burney's Cecilia. The 
account of the sect of "jar- 
gonists" is in Book IV, Chap- 
ter II. 230:14. 



252 



GLOSSARY. 



Greville, Fulke. The most fa- 
mous member of the Greville 
family was the first baron, a 
friend and biographer of Sir 
Philip Sidney. 164:24. 

Grosvenor Square. A fashion- 
able square in West London. 
167:16. 

Grotius (Hugo) and Tillotson 
(John). Theological writers 
of Holland and England re- 
spectively. 74:5, 

Grub Street, London. Now Mil- 
ton street; formerly noted as 
the abode of poor writers. 
114:13. 

Gustavus II. Adolphus. King 
of Sweden, 1611-1632. Though 
a Protestant, the French, at 
the instigation of Cardinal 
Richelieu, formed an alliance 
with him in his opposition to 
the encroachments of the Ger- 
man Emperor, 120:14. 

Hailes, Lord. Sir David Dal- 
rymple, a Scottish judge. Dr. 
Johnson revised his Annals of 
Scotland r 1776. 225:25. 

Hampstead. A suburb of Lon- 
don, formerly noted for its 
mineral springs and as a so- 
cial and literary center. 179:20. 

Hapsburg. A German princely 
family. Its reign extended 
from Rudolph I in 1273 to the 
death of Charles VI in 1740. 
77:27. 

Harpagon. A miser in Moliere's 
comedy, L'Avare.* 112:1. 

Harrel. A character in Miss 
Burney's Cecilia; one of the 
guardians of the heroine, who 
borrows money from her, gam- 
bles it away, and commits 
suicide. 194:6, 



Harris, James, of Salisbury 
(1709-1780). Author of Hermes, 
a work on universal gram- 
mar; secretary to George Ill's 
queen. 168:23. 

Hawkesworth, John (1715?-1773). 
A friend and imitator of Dr. 
Johnson, with whom he car- 
ried on the periodical, The 
Adventurer, 1752-1754. 224:33. 

Hayley, William (1745-1820). A 
mediocre English poet. 136:12. 

Henriade. An epic poem by 
Voltaire, intended to set forth 
the crime of war undertaken 
in the name of religion. 68:29, 

Heraclitus. A Greek philosopher 
of ancient Ephesus, who lived 
a life of solitary meditation, 
but who did not deserve the 
title of "The Weeping Philoso- 
pher" which has been tradi- 
tionally given to him. 187:20. 

Hippocrene. A fountain on Mt, 
Helicon, sacred to the Muses; 
hence, inspired poetry (Ma- 
caulay's quotation marks are 
manifestly intended to throw 
doubt on the inspiration). 
136:2. 

Howard, Sir George (1720?- 
1796). British commander of 
a brigade in Germany during 
the Seven Years' War, 145:35. 

Hume, Joseph (1777-1855), A 
politician and army surgeon 
in the East India service; a 
strong advocate of retrench- 
ment in public expenditure. 
96:9, 

Hussar. A light-horse trooper, 
originally Hungarian, armed 
with saber and carbine, 88:19. 

I forewarn thee, etc. From Mil- 
ton's Paradise Lost, II, 810- 
814. 113:1. 



GLOSSARY. 



253 



slam. The Mohammedan peo- 
ploR, countries, or religion. 
88:17. 

Jack Sheppard. A sensational 
p'.ay by John Buckstone, 
founded on the life of the 
celebrated English robber. 
172:30. 

Jacobins. The name adopted by 
the more violent French revo- 
lutionary clubs. 214:8. 

Jenyns, Soame (1704-1787). A 
miscellaneous writer. His Free 
Enquiry into the Nature and 
Orif/in of Evil was reviewed by 
Dr. Johnson in the Literary 
Mar/a.zine. 225:20. 

Joshua. The successor of Moses, 
who led the Israelites into the 
land of promise. 145:5. 

Jourdain, Monsieur. A character 
in Moliere's comedy, Lc Bour- 
geois Gentilhomme ; a rich up- 
start who tries to wear the 
manners of a gentleman. 
63:16; 220:30. 

Keith, George. See 102:2. 

Kelly, Hugh (1739-1777). A bar- 
rister and playwright; author 
of False Delicacy, A Word to 
the Wise, etc. 53:15. 

Kenrick, William (1725?-1779). 
A miscellaneous writer who 
took pleasure in libelling suc- 
cessful authors and actors. 
182:27. 

King-at-arms. An officer hav- 
ing jurisdiction over heralds 
(used metaphorically by Ma- 
caulay). 216:17. 

Klopstock, Friedrich (1724-1803). 
A noted German poet and 
dramatist. 190:28. 

Kotzebue, August F. F. von 
(1761-1819). A prolific German 
writer of cheaply emotional 



comedies, who ruled the Ger- 
man stage about the end of 
the 18th century. 162:7. 

La Clos, Pierre (1741-1803). A 
French general and writer of 
licentious novels. 139:28. 

La Fayette, Marquis de (1757- 
1834). A celebrated French 
general and statesman; served 
in the American revolutionary 
army; was a member of the 
National Assembly of France, 
1789. 215:5. 

Lake Leman. The French name 
of the Lake of Geneva, Switz- 
erland. 117:6. 

Lambert, Daniel (1770-1809). The 
most celebrated example of 
corpulency on record; he 
weighed 756 pounds. See "Cor- 
pulence" in the Encycl. Britan- 
nica. 217:21. 

Langton, Bennet (1737-1801). A 
Greek scholar and member of 
Dr. Johnson's Literary Club. 
184:20. 

Languish, Miss Lydia, and Miss 
Sukey Saunter. Characters in 
Sheridan's The Rivals; indo- 
lent young women devoted to 
novel-reading. See the play. 
Act I, sc. 2. 181:31. 

Lauriston, Marquis de (1768- 
1828). A French marshal, dip- 
lomatist, and minister, charged 
with bearing to London the 
ratification of the Treaty of 
Amiens. 215:4. 

Lawrence, Sir Thomas (1769- 
1830). A celebrated portrait 
painter, president of the Royal 
Academy. 217:28. 

Lives of the Poets. Dr. John- 
son's last important work, 
1779-1781. 60:4. 

Lorenzo de' Medici. A cele- 
brated Florentine statesman 



254 



GLOSSARY. 



and patron of letters and art 
in the 15th century. 101:21. 
Louvois, Marquis de. A French 
statesman, minister of war 
under Louis XIV, 1666-1691. 
92:33. 

Machiavelli, Niccolo (1469-1527). 
A Florentine statesman, au- 
thor of II Principe, "The 
Prince." His name has be- 
come synonymous with deceit 
in statecraft; hence the irony 
of Frederic's posing as an 
"Anti-Machiavel." 74:32. 

Magdalen College. One of the 
most beautiful colleges of Ox- 
ford; founded in 1457. 200:5. 

Malplaquet. A village in north- 
ern France; the scene of a 
bloody victory by the Allies 
under Marlborough and Prince 
Eugene over the French, 1709. 
85:31. 

Marat, Jean Paul (1744-1793). 
A French revolutionist, one of 
the most radical of the Ja- 
cobin party. 213:24. 

Margrave. Formerly the lord of 
a German mark (march, bor- 
der), corresponding to the 
English marquis. 62:13. 

Margravine. The wife of a Mar- 
grave. 66:12. 

Marlborough, Duke of. John 
Churchill (1650-^722). An Eng- 
lish statesman and general. 
With Eugene of Savoy, in the 
War of the Spanish Succes- 
sion, he was a leading spirit 
in the alliance against France. 
Victor at Blenheim and Mal- 
plaquet. 84:19. 

Marquisate. The rank or dig- 
nity of marquis (next below 
duke). 62:2. 

Martin, Saint. A popular saint, 
patron of beggars and drunk- 



ards. Once before his conver 
sion, while a military tribune 
at Amiens in midwinter, hi 
is said to have divided hi 
military cloak with a begga 
who asked him for alms. 208 
17. 

Massillon, Jean Baptiste (1663 
1742). A French pulpit orato: 
and academician. 70:8. 

Maupertuis, Pierre L. M. d( 
(1698-1759). A French astrono 
mer and philosopher. 54:16 
102:25. 

Mazarin, Jules (1602-1661). I 
French statesman and cardi 
nal; succeeded Richelieu a; 
prime minister in 1642. 92:33 

Medicean age. The age of th( 
Florentine Medici, great pa- 
trons of learning and art 
75:27. 

Meltonian ardor. Melton Mow- 
bray, in Leicestershire, is £ 
famous fox-hunting center 
169:33, 

Merton College, Oxford. The 
oldest college in the university 
founded in 1264. 200:6. 

Metastasio (1698-1782). An Ital- 
ian poet, remarkable for bea ut j 
of style. 71:7. 

Mithridates the Great. King ol 
Pontus 120-63 B. C. After .suf- 
fering defeat, he tried to kill 
himself by poison. 136:23. 

Moliere (1622-1673). The great- 
est French writer of comedies. 
63:15. 

Moloch. A sun-god, widelj' wor- 
shiped in ancient times with 
human sacrifices. 66:11; 207:35. 

Monckton, Mr. One of the char- 
acters in Miss Burney's Cecilia, 
a man who schemes to secure 
the heroine's fortune. 203:5. 

Monmouth Street (now Dudley 
Street). In London. It con- 



GLOSSARY. 



255 



tains many shops for old 
clothes. "With awe-struck 
heart I walk through that 
Monmouth street, with its 
empty suits, as through a San- 
hedrim of stainless ghosts." 
Carlyle Sartor Reaartus, III. vi. 
97:9. 

Montagu, Mrs. (Elizabeth Rob- 
inson, 1720-1800). An English 
author and social leader, fa- 
mous for her "blue-stocking" 
assemblies. 213:28. 

Montesquieu (1689-1755). A great 
French writer and academ- 
ician; author of The Spirit of 
the Laics. 107:28. 

Montezuma. An Aztec emperor 
of the 16th century. 54:5. 

Morning Post. Macaulay once 
sent some very sentimental 
verses to the Mornimj Post — 
"because that paper is the or- 
dinary receptacle of trash of 
the description which I in- 
tended to ridicule." 227:1. 

Mount of Defiance. "Near Press- 
burg is a barrow or tumulus, 
which the new sovereign as- 
cends on horse-back, and 
waves a drawn sword towards 
the four cardinal points." Will- 
iam Coxe, History of the House 
of Austria, chap. 101. 86:26. 

Murphy, Arthur (1727-1805). An 
author and actor. He wrote 
the Life of David Qarrick. 
185:30. 

Nabob. The native governor of 
an East Indian province. The 
name was often applied to 
Anglo-Indian officials who re- 
turrfed to England with great 
wealth. 63:6. 

Naseby. A village in Northamp- 
tonshire, the scene of the de- 



feat of the royalists by Crom- 
well in 1645. 54:1. 

Nash, Beau. Richard Nash, a 
fop and gambler, who estab- 
lished a code of etiquette and 
dress and made himself auto- 
crat of Bath in the early 18th 
century. 47:13. 

Nemesis. In Greek mythology, 
the goddess of retribution. 
133:16. 

New College, Oxford. One of 
the oldest colleges of Oxford, 
founded in 1379. The large 
west window in the chapel was 
executed in 1777 from designs 
by Reynolds. 200:19. 

Newdigate and Seatonian poetry. 
An annual prize for English 
verse was founded at Oxford 
by Sir Roger Newdigate in 
1805, and a similar one for 
sacred poetry at Cambridge by 
Thomas Seaton in 1741. 72:29. 

Nollekens, Joseph (1737-1823). A 
British sculptor who executed 
busts of most of the important 
people of his day, as well as 
monuments and other works. 
59:34. 

Oliver Twist. A workhouse or- 
phan in Dickens's novel of tlie 
same name. 65:28. 

Omai. A native Otaheitan (Ta- 
hitian) taken to England by 
Captain Cook and lionized by 
London society. Oberea was 
the queen of Otaheite, and 
Sir ,Toseph Banks was her 
"Opano." See Boswell's Life 
of Johnson, Apr. 3, 1776. 170:2. 

Orloff, Count Grigori (1734-1783). 
A Russian general who served 
in the Seven Years' War. He 
conspired to put Catherine II 
on the throne, and became her 
paramour; the famous "Orloff 



256 



GLOSSAEY. 



diamond" was given to her by 
him. 169:17. 
O'Trigger, Sir Lucius. A for- 
tune-hunting Irishman and 
duellist in Sheridan's comedy, 
The Rivals. 220:31. 

Pacchierotti, Gaspardo (1744- 
1821). A celebrated Italian 
singer who sang for several 
seasons in London. 168:32. 

Palissot de Montenoy, Charles 
(1730-1814). A French writer 
of satires, comedies, and un- 
successful tragedies. He as- 
sailed Rousseau, Helvetius, and 
the Encyclopedists in his com- 
edy, Les Philosophes, 1760. 
150:8. 

Pandoor (Pandour, Pandur). One 
of the foot-soldiers who were 
levied in the vicinity of 
Pandur, Hungary, and who 
were noted for ferocity. 88:18. 

Paoli, Pascal (1725-1807). A Cor- 
sican general and patriot who 
late in life took refuge in Eng- 
land. He was a member of 
Johnson's Club. 184:20. 

Pelletier, Ambroise (1703-1758). 
A French genealogist and 
painter of miniatures. 123:21. 

Pembroke College, Oxford. One 
of the later colleges of Oxford, 
attended by Dr. Johnson. 200: 
18. 

Pepys, Samuel (1633-1703). An 
English secretary of the ad- 
miralty who left a voluminous, 
gossipy diary. 204:2. 

Peterborough, Charles Mordaunt, 
third Earl of (1658-1735). One 
of the leaders of the expedi- 
tionary force to Spain, who 
surprised Montjuich, and com- 
pelled the surrender of Barce- 
lona, deemed impregnable 
(1705). 42:17. 



Petion de Villeneuve, Jerome 
(1753-1794). A French revolu- 
tionist, president of the As- 
sembly in 1790; later pro- 
scribed. 213:24. 

Pitt, William the Younger (1759- 
1806). A celebrated English 
statesman. He entered par- 
liament in 1780. 161:22. 

Place of Victories. The Place 
(Irs Yictoiies in Paris, con- 
taining formerly a statue of 
Louis XIV receiving from 
Victorj' a laurel crown, later 
replaced by an equestrian 
statue of the same monarch. 
85:34. 

Plantagenets. The line of Eng- 
lish kings extending from 
Henry II to Richard III (1154- 
1485). 63:9. 

Pomerania. A province of Prus- 
sia. 84:16. 

Pompadour, Marquise de 
(Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, 
later Madame d'Etioles). A 
very influential mistress of 
Louis XV. 123:1. 

Pomptine (or Pontine) Marshes. 
A marshy, pestilential region 
in Latium, Italy. 201:6. 

Person, Richard (1754-1808). An 
English Greek scholar; he 
took his degree at Cambridge 
in 1782. 161:22. 

Port Royal. A Cistercian abbey 
a few miles southwest of 
Paris. Racine, the poet, re- 
ceived his early education 
from the nuns there, and was 
buried in its cemetery. 108:11. 

Potsdam. A town sixteen miles 
southwest of Berlin; the 
Prussian imperial residence. 
62:12. 

Pragmatic Sanction, The. See 
77:30. 



GLOSSARY. 



257 



Prague. The capital of Bo- 
hemia, and now the third 
city of the Austrian empire. 
The Thirty Years' War be- 
gan there, 1618. It was also 
the scene of Frederic's great 
victory over the Austrians in 
1757. 132:12. 

Presburg, or Pressburg. The 
capital of Hungary from 1541 
to 1784. 86:21. 

Preuss, Johann D. E. (1785- 
1868). A Prussian historian. 
His biography of Frederic 
the Great was published, 
1832-34. 79:34. 

"Probationary Odes." That is, 
the odes of a probationer or 
candidate. When Thomas 
Warton was made poet-lau- 
reate in 1785 and published 
his first official ode in honor 
of the king's birthday, these 
anonymous odes were pub- 
lished to cast ridicule upon 
him. 190:14. 

Puck. A mischievous elf or imp 
in Teutonic folklore. 66:11. 

"Rachael weeping for her chil- 
dren." Jeremiah, xxxi. 15; 
Mattheu-, ii. 18. 177:32. 

Racine, Jean Baptiste (1639- 
1699). A French tragic poet, 
autlior of Iphigenie, Phedre, 
Athalie, etc. 70:8. 

Rackrent, Sir Condy. A char- 
acter in Maria Edgeworth's 
Castle Racktent, a heedless, 
good - natured Irish land - 
owner. 162:23. 

Radcliffe Library. Macaulay 
refers to the Camera Bodle- 
iana, a building in the form 
of a rotunda, surmounted by 
a dome. It became the liome 
of the Radcliffe Library when 



that was founded in 1837. 
200:7. 

Radcliffe, Mrs. (1764-1823). An 
English writer of novels of the 
extravagantly romantic type: 
TJie Romance of the Forest, 
The Miisteries of Udolpho, etc. 
162:12. 

Rambler, The. A periodical of 
the essay type, issued by Dr. 
Johnson, 1750-1752. 224:30. 

Rapparees. Irish robber bands 
of the 17th century. Hugh 
Balldearg O'Donnell (d. 1704) 
was a soldier of fortune of 
considerable renown, fighting 
not only in Ireland but in 
Austria and Spain. 42:15. 

Reeves, John (1752? - 1829). 
King's printer. In 1795 he pub- 
lished a pamphlet. Thoughts 
on the English Qovernment, 
advancing extreme royalist 
views, and was prosecuted 
for libel by the House of 
Commons. 213:21. 

Regency Bill. A bill conferring 
the regency on the Prince of 
Wales, prepared by Pitt dur- 
ing the serious illness of 
George III in 1788. See Ma- 
caulay's Essay on William 
Pitt (the Younger: Enc. Brit.). 
204:31. 

Rehearsal, The. 51:27. See 
Bayes. 

Reynolds, Sir Joshua (1723- 
1792). A celebrated British 
portrait-painter and writer. 
168:23. 

Richardson, Samuel (1689-1761). 
An English novelist, author 
of Pamela, Clarissa Harloue, 
and Sir Charles Grandison. 
183:32. 

Richelieu, Due de (1696-1788). 
A French marshal, grand- 



258 



GLOSSARY 



nephew of Cardinal Richelieu. 
139:24. 

Richelieu, Duke and Cardinal 
(1585-1642). A celebrated 

French statesman, prime 
minister of Louis XIII. 92:32. 

rixdollar (rigsdaler). A silver 
coin of Europe, worth about 
54 cents. 76:31. 

Rogers, Samuel (1763-1855). An 
English poet whose house 
was a noted literary center 
in Macaulay's time. 161:13. 

Rolian. The name of a family 
of Brittany (Armorica). Con- 
spicuous were the brothers 
Henri de Rohan and Benja- 
min de Rohan, both Huguenot 
leaders. Charles, Prince de 
Soubise, was a later member. 
141:2. 

Rousseau, Jean Jacques (1712- 
1788). A celebrated Swiss- 
French philosopher, who laid 
the foundations of modern 
pedagogy. 107:30. 

Roxburghe Club. A club, found- 
ed in 1812, for the collection 
and re-printing of rare books 
and manuscripts. 64:9. 

St. James's. A palace in west- 
ern London long used as a 
royal residence; the official 
name of the British court. 
63:34. 

St. James's Square. In west- 
ern London; crowded with 
aristocratic mansions and 
clubs. 167:16. 

St. Luke's. A hospital and 
asylum in Old Street, City 
Road, London. 168:16. 

St. Sebastian (or San Sebas- 
tian). A seaport of Spain 
besieged by Wellington in 
1813. 80:26. 



Saxe, Count Maurice de (1696- 
1750). A celebrated French 
marshal and writer. 110:34. 

Saxon. As used in the essay on 
Frederick the Great, this word 
refers to the country or in- 
habitants of Saxony. As 
used in the essay on Gold- 
smith (41:3), it means Eng- 
lish, as opposed to Highland 
Scotch or Irish, who are of 
Celtic race. 

Scapin. A tricky valet in Mo- 
liere's comedy, Les Fourberies 
de Scapin. 112:2. 

Schwerin, Count Kurt Christoph 
(1684-1757). A German gen- 
eral; field-marshal of Freder- 
ic the Great; killed at the 
battle of Prague. 84:15. 

Scudery, Madeleine de (1607- 
1701). A French novelist and 
poet. Her long romantic 
novels were very popular. 
108:24. 

Senate House. One of the two 
houses (regents and non- 
regents) of the governing 
body of the University of 
Cambridge. 215:32. 

seventy-four. A "seventy-four" 
means the command of a 
battleship rated as carrying 
seventy-four guns. 192:25. 

Seward, William, F.R.S. (1747- 
1799). A friend of Dr. John- 
son and the Thrales. 184:18. 

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley 
(1751-1816). A British dram- 
atist and orator; author of 
TJie Rivals and The School for 
Scandal. 183:9. 

Siamese twins. Eng and Chang, 
two Siamese whose bodies 
were joined from birth. They 
died in 1874. 217:22. 

Siddons, Mrs. (Sarah Kemble, 
1755-1831). A celebrated tragic 



GLOSSAKY 



259 



actress. Her greatest role 
was Lady Macbeth. 172:28. 

Sieyes, Abbe (1748-1836). A 
French statesman, republican, 
and popular leader during 
the Revolution. 101:7. 

Sigismund (1368-1437). Emperor 
of the Holy Roman Empire. 
62:3. 

Silesia. The region about the 
upper Oder, where Russia. 
Austria, and Prussia meet; 
long an object of contention 
among those powers. 79:29. 

Smike. In Dickens's Nicholas 
Nicklehjj, a much abused boy 
in the service of Squeers, the 
cruel master of Dotheboy's 
Hall. 65:29. 

Smollett, Tobias George (1721- 
1771). An English novelist, 
author of Roderick Random, 
Peregrine Pickle, etc. 182:16. 

Snow Hill. A hill in central 
London, formerly very steep, 
now reached by Holborn Via- 
duct. 179:19. 

Sobieski. John HI, King of 
Poland. He relieved Vienna, 
gaining a great victory over 
the Turks, in 1683. 151:2. 

Southey, Robert (1774-1843). An 
English poet of the Lake 
School. 161:14. 

Stael, Madame de (1766-1817). 
A celebrated French writer; 
an admirer of Rousseau; an 
acquaintance of Goethe. Gib- 
bon, etc.; author of Corinnc. 
213:32. 

Stanhope, James, first Earl 
.Stanhope (1673-1721). The 
leader of the Allies at the 
time of their defeat at Bri- 
huega. Spain, 1710, in tho 
wars of Queen Anne. 42:17. 

Stante pede niorire. Literally, 
"to die with the foot stand- 



ing." Apparently an attempt 
to express in Latin the idea 
of dying on one's feet, or in 
action. 71:4. 

Steevens, George (1736-1800). A 
Sliakespearean critic and mis- 
cellaneous writer who con- 
stantly quarrelled with his 
associates. 57:9; 182:28. 

Stephen I, Saint. Crowned first 
king of Hungary in 1000; be- 
came the patron saint of 
Hungary. 86:23. 

Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768). 
An English humorist, author 
of Tristram Shandy and A 
Sentimental Journey. 220:27. 

Sternholds. Thomas Sternhold 
was an old English hymn- 
writer who versified the 
Psalms. Macaulay uses his 
name as a generic term. 
142:2. 

Streatham Park. The home of 
the Thrales, where Dr. John- 
son spent much of his time. 
The Park, or Common, is a 
district near the present Brit- 
ish Museum. 183:13. 
style. Title. 62:29. 

Surat. In Bombay; a great 
emporium of India under the 
Mogul Empire. 64:21. 

Surface, Joseph. A hypocritical 
fellow in Sheridan's comedy. 
The School for Scandal. 220:31. 

Talleyrand (1754-1838). A fa- 
mous French statesman and 
diplomatist; envoy in Eng- 
land in 1742. 213:33. 

Tanals. The ancient name of 
the river Don, Russia. 119:19. 

Temple, The. A lodge in Lon- 
don, formerly of the Knights 
Templars; in late years given 
over to barristers. 57:32. 



260 



GLOSSARY 



Temple Bar. A famous gate- 
way in London which divided 
Fleet Street on the east from 
its continuation, the Strand, 
on the west; now supplanted 
by a monument. 181:34. 

Thiebault, Dieudonne (1733- 
1807). A French man of let- 
ters called by Frederic the 
Great to be instructor in the 
military academy at Berlin; 
the author of some curious 
memoirs, "Twenty Years So- 
journ at Berlin." Carlyle 
makes a passing allusion to 
his having once narrowly es- 
caped a horse-whipping for 
circulating a scandal about 
Frederic's sister. 77:13. 

Thrale, Mrs. (1741-1831). The 
wife of a London brewer and 
long a friend of Dr. Johnson. 
After the death of her hus- 
band she married Gabriel 
Plozzi, an Italian Roman 
Catholic musician — a mar- 
riage disapproved by the so- 
ciety of the time. 182:10. 

Three Bishoprics, The. The 
bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and 
Verdun. They were taken 
by France in 1552. 88:28. 

Torcy, Marquis de. Jean Bap- 
tiste Colbert, a nephew of the 
great Colbert. He was secre- 
tary for foreign affairs in 
1690. 92:33. 

Tot verhas, tot spondera. Prob- 
ably for tot vcrha, tot pond era, 
"so many words, so many 
weights," "every word 

weighty." Carlyle exclaims 
over this phrase. "What can 
any commentator make of 
that?" 71:5. 

Trissotin. A ridiculous pedant 
in Moli^re's Les Fcnimes Sav- 
anles. 136:23. 



Tudors. The English sover- 
eigns from Henry VII to 
Elizabeth, 1485-1603. 80:17. 

Tulip mania. A speculative 
craze for tulip bulVjs which 
started in Holland and spread 
over Europe, 1634-1637. 64:9. 

Tunbridge Wells. A well known 
watering place in Kent. Its 
main promenade is called 
"The Pantiles," from the 
character of its first pave- 
ment. 185:11. 

Turin. In northern Italy; taken 
by the Imperialists under 
Prince Eugene in 1706. 85:31. 

Twining, Thomas (1735-18^)4). 
A musician and linguist; 
translator of Aristotle's Poet- 
ics. 168:23. 

Unities. The three dramatic 
unities of time, place, and ac- 
tion, as laid down by Aris- 
totle and as observed by the 
French classical dramatists. 
224:23. 

Utrecht, Peace of. A peace con- 
cluded in 1713 between France 
on the one side and Great 
Britain, the Netherlands. 
Savoy, Prussia, and Portugal 
on the other, which marked 
practically the end of the 
War of the Spanish Succes- 
sion. The treaty was dis- 
honorable to England, since in 
making it she failed to keep 
faith with her continental 
allies who had confederated 
to keep the House of Bourbon 
from possessing France and 
Spain; and she had, as Ma- 
caulay states, given up the 
Catalans to the vengeance of 
Philip of Anjou. 155:18. 



GLOSSARY 



261 



Van Artevelde, Philip. A play 
by Henry Taylor, modelled 
upon the Elizabethan drama; 
published in 1834. 172:30. 

Vatican. A hill of Rome, con- 
taining St. Peter's and the 
Vatican palace, the residence 
of the Pope; hence, the papal 
power of authority. 99:11. 

Vernon, Edward (1684-1757). An 
English admiral, who failed 
before Cartagena in 1741, pub- 
lished an anonymous attack 
on the admiralty, and was 
cashiered in 1746. 145:1. 

Versailles. Near Paris; site of 
the royal palace of Louis XIV 
and his successors; the French 
court. 63:33. 

Villars, Due de (1653-1734). A 
French marshal; victor at 
Hochstadt. 1703; defeated at 
Malplaquet, 1709. 95:30. 

Vinegar Bible. So called from 
an error, rinef/ar for vinci/ard. 
in the running headline of 
Luke xxii. It was printed at 
Oxford in 1717, and is prized 
by collectors as a curiosity. 
64:31. 

Virginia. The daughter of Vir- 
ginius, slain, according to Ro- 
man legend, by her father to 
save her from Appius Clau- 
dius. 174:21. 

Vitruvius. A Roman military 
engineer under Caesar and Au- 
gustus, who wrote a work on 
the theory of architecture but 
appears to have been com- 
paratively inefficient as an 
architect. 117:14. 

Voltaire (1694-1778). The as- 
sumed name of Francois 
Marie Arouet, a famou.s 
French philosopher and skep- 
tic. He was a prolific writer. 
Among his works are Zaire, 



Al:;iic, Mcrope, Tancrcdc, and 
Mahomet, tragedies, La Hen- 
riGde, an epic poem, and a 
life of Charles XIL 73:10. 

Waller, Edmund (1606-1687). An 
extremely popular poet con- 
temporary with Milton. 189:11. 

Walpole, Horace (1717-1797). An 
English author and collector 
of articles of vertu. 55:20. 

Walpole, Sir Robert (1676-1745). 
English statesman;. prime 
minister under George II. 
85:23. 

Whitefield, George (1714-1770). 
An English clergyman, one of 
the founders of Methodism. 
145:6. 

Wilkes, John (1727-1797). An 
English politician who had a 
stormy career. "His features 
were irregular to the point 
of ugliness, and a squint lent 
them a sinister expression, 
maliciously exaggerated in 
the celebrated caricature by 
71ogarth." (Diet. Nat. Bioy.) 
217:25. 

Wilkie, Sir David (1775-1841). 
A noted Scotch genre painter 
and etcher. 231:6. 

Williams, Mrs. Anna (1706-1783). 
A poet and friend of Dr. 
.Johnson. 225:25. 

Williams, John (1761-1818). A 
satirist and miscellaneous 
writer. "That malignant and 
filthy baboon. John Williams, 
who called himself Anthony 
Pasquin." (Macaulay: Warren 
Ifa.stiiifjs.) 182:29, 

Windham, William (1750-1810). 
One of the members of parlia- 
ment cliarged with the im- 
l^eachment of Hastings; a 
friend of Johnson and Burke. 
183:8. 



262 



GLOSSARY. 



Wolcot, John (1738-1819). A 
poet and satirist who pub- 
lished under the name of 
"Peter Pindar." 182:28. 

wranglers (University of Cam- 



bridge). Those who have obi 
tained first grade in the fina 
examinations in mathematic; 
215:27. 




MAY !2 J9I3 



